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COPYRIGHT DEPOSES 



CHRISTIANITY AND THE 
MAN OF TO-DAY 



Christianity and the 
Man of To -Day 



By . 
GEORGE STANLEY FRAZER 



With an Introduction by 

HORACE M. DU BOSE, D.D. 

Book Editor Methodist Episco- 
pal Churchy South 



NashviHe, Tenn. 

Dallas, Tex.; Richmond, Va. 

Publishing House of the M. E. Church, South 

Smith & Lamar, Agents 

1917 






Copyright, 1917 

BY 

Smith & Lamar 




OCT 23 1917 



©CI.A476679 



To 

My Wife 
Whose Helpfulness and Companion' 
ship Have Contributed So Largely 
to Its Production^ This Little Vol- 
ume Is Affectionately Inscribed 



FOREWORD 

TT7HATEVER may be its other characteris- 
tics, ours is preeminently an era fraught 
with inquiry concerning religious standards. 
Perhaps never in its history has our Christian 
pulpit had so many problems to solve and ques- 
tions to answer. But while there is a wide- 
spread inquiry concerning spiritual truth, there 
are also voices that are persistently calling men 
away from the inner life and the culture of the 
soul to those "practical" requirements whose 
tendencies are to stifle and deaden the high 
truths of faith. There is a "religion of suc- 
cess" that threatens to become the creed of our 
age and a sacred and absorbing conviction. 
One may discern in our modern life a tendency 
toward an education that seeks to know in or- 
der to get. Not only the Church, but the State 
and humanity are experiencing a blight that 
may be attributed to an overdone principle of 
the practical. Added to the countless other 

[7] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

perplexities is the confusion which has arisen 
from the discussion between faith and science, 
with the result that some have become bewil- 
dered in their thinking to the extent of believ- 
ing that science is all knowledge and religion 
all credulity. 

While criticisms on the irreligion of our 
time may be meaningless, since the same things 
have been said about other times, still it is only 
too evident that there is prevalent to-day a 
spiritual apathy that is exerting a baneful in- 
fluence on the Church itself. Unfortunately, 
many critics have arisen whose unillumined 
thinking has caused many to turn away from 
the Church. To-day the most vigorous criti- 
cism is directed, not against Jesus Christ, but 
against the institution which bears his name. 
Much of the confusion, inside the Church and 
out, has arisen from a dogmatic interpretation 
of religious truth and from doctrinal skir- 
mishes between exponents of various view- 
points. Many religious teachers have fallen 
into the way of addressing the life of the pres- 

[8] 



Foreword 

ent in the terms of an age gone by. Others 
are seeking to reach the masses by the adoption 
of the sensational and showy, an attempt to 
lift the world to a higher plane in the moral 
order by some ecclesiastical device. Still oth- 
ers are placing the emphasis on social service 
almost to the point of exalting sociology to a 
religion and "making up in organization what 
is lacking in inspiration." 

But despite the assertion, so often made, that 
modern life is not concerned about the deep 
things of religion, there are some things that 
are clear. Religion is the most intimate and 
vital of all human concerns; and the religion 
of an age, as of an individual, must be judged 
by the state of its conscience. As Sabatier 
remarked, "man is incurably religious"; and 
the man of to-day is yearning for an interpre- 
tation of Christianity, genuine in its spirit and 
simple in its expression, that will indisputably 
attest that it is the Christianity of Christ, and 
whose beauty will be reflected in the lives of 
those who claim to be followers of the Man of 

[9] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

Galilee. The modern man is not asking for 
theories ; he is seeking a living Christ who can- 
not be encompassed by theories and who tow- 
ers above all dogma, and he is asking that this 
Christ be the central theme and fact in the 
Church and its message to the world. 

While ours may be an era of transition, and 
for that reason an era of questioning, still 
nothing can be clearer than the fact that the 
principles of Jesus are permeating every sphere 
of our modern life; that his spirit is being en- 
throned in the marts of trade, in the world of 
politics, and, despite all signs to the contrary, 
in international relations. A new democracy 
is dawning in which material forces must inev- 
itably yield to the spiritual. No matter how 
dark or forbidding the evils that encompass us, 
to one whose eyes are not holden Christianity, 
as the complete expression of true religion, is 
destined to project her beneficent ministry into 
succeeding ages to the destruction of every 
tyranny and the banishment of all unkindness. 

If, as has been said, "the measure of a book 

[10] 



Foreword 

is in its appeal to the individual,' ' it is sincerely 
hoped that this little volume may prove a cup 
of strength to those who are bewildered by the 
voices of the age with its whirling eddies. It 
is not presented with an idea that it possesses 
any special literary charm or that it offers any 
profound insight into the tangled maze of the 
problems of the day, but rather with the 
prayer that it may shed a ray of light on some 
of the dark enigmas of life, that it may prove 
to the troubled spirit an inspiration to "fight 
the good fight of faith," and that it may 

"Be the sweet presence of a good diffuse 
And in diffusion ever more intense." 

George Stanley Frazer. 

Washington, Georgia. 

[ii] 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Introduction 15 

Chapter I 
Modern Values 19 

Chapter II 
The Church in Its Appeal to Modern Life. 54 

Chapter III 

What Modern Life Demands of Chris- 
tianity 97 

Chapter IV 
The Conquering Vision 127 

[13] 



INTRODUCTION 

rjlHE present volume, though of measured 
compass, is worthy to be considered as 
one of the first fruits of the new literary and 
thought movement of which so much is proph- 
esied and hoped in the Church and country. 
World suffering is turning mankind, more than 
ever before, to seek for the higher truth in 
which is healing and stay of intellectual life, 
while sudden and unlooked-for changes in the 
world order are sowing the seeds of serious- 
ness in the soil heretofore turned by the plow- 
share of lightness, A mutuality of interest is 
also bringing into play a sympathy hitherto un- 
invoked in the history of mankind. It is the 
long-promised opportunity of the gospel. Its 
conjunctions of sentiment and possibility pre- 
sent such a theme for the pen of the writer pre- 
pared and inspired as has rarely before been 
offered. Out of the life of the times which are 
now taking shape is to come a literature un- 
paralleled in the spirit of its earnestness and 

[is] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

the effectiveness of its message. We have the 
records of an Augustan, an Elizabethan, and a 
Victorian age; also of the awakenings in the 
times of Dante, of Lorenzo the Magnificent, 
and following the French Revolution. But 
we now hope for an age of humanity, an age 
whose life and thought movements are to be 
designated by no national name, nor limited 
save by the lines which describe the challenged 
and awakened sense of mankind. The crown- 
ing realization of that time is to be faith — a 
clearer, serener, surer faith in God and human 
life, and so a surer use of the divine revelation 
— and a more serious and soulful taking hold 
of life and its ever-multiplying opportunities. 

"Christianity and the Man of To-Day" is a 
palate-exciting pledge of the fruit fulness of the 
age of religious thought, ministry, and literary 
teaching opening up before the young scholars 
and authors of our Church and country. But 
opportunity is always test ; and the opportunity 
now at hand is a test to which must be brought 
the best we can produce, itself the output of 

[16] 



Introduction 

soul agony and desire, but it is a test in which 
the best will win. 

This little volume has qualities of genuine 
literary merit and goes with a winsome and 
eloquent earnestness to the heart of the theme, 
the spiritual hunger and need of the man of 
to-day. It is not a technical presentation or 
recital of the moral and spiritual imperfections 
of the race. It is more and better; it is the 
discovery of the prodigal in the desert, a diag- 
nosis of his soul sickness and the agony in his 
heart, and a pointing back to the plenty and 
soul rest to be found in the favor and fellow- 
ship of the Father. It is reassuring to find 
that the men who are to take the leadership of 
the future and to influence the life of the next 
generation are thinking the wholesome and ele- 
vated thoughts which are dominant in the dis- 
cussions of this volume. We have had the 
privilege, as official editor, to conduct through 
the press during the past year and a half a 
number of inspiring treatises, and we are glad 
to be able to give to this a rank with the best. 

Horace M. Du Bose. 

Nashville, Tennessee, April 14, 1917. 

2 [17] 



CHRISTIANITY AND THE MAN 
OF TO-DAY 



Chapter I 
MODERN VALUES 

70^ VERY age has peculiarities characteristic 
of its spirit. One age will devote its ef- 
forts to the philosophical, the building of the- 
ologies, and the writing of poetry. Another 
age will be agnostic, busy about near-by things, 
and unwilling to trust itself to the larger and 
the deeper things of faith. This is character- 
istic of our age, noble and fruitful in many of 
its endeavors, but practical and fact-loving 
almost to the point of distrust. The result has 
been a tendency toward the impersonal, which 
has been carried to a paralyzing emphasis. A 
multitude of forces are conspiring to blur the 
edges of individuality and mold men into a 
common mass. Science has unveiled the in- 
credible vastness of the universe, which has 

[19] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

created a loneliness in the human heart and 
overpowered man with a feeling of insignifi- 
cance. Electricity and steam have made us a 
wandering people, and in the ceaseless move- 
ment of population the foundations of morality 
are in peril. The appalling migrations from 
the rural districts to the life of the city are 
causing vast populations to be swallowed up in 
the whirlpool of its seething life. Industrial 
and commercial forces are ceaselessly at work 
to obliterate the distinction of the individual. 
Men are crowded into factories and mills. 
Business men are forming themselves into cor- 
porations and syndicates, each man disappear- 
ing deeper and deeper into the ever-increasing 
bulk of the whole. 

Moreover, our age is given to the accumu- 
lation of wealth, the scramble for power, and 
the quest of artificial pleasure. For years we 
have been kept busy clearing forests, plowing 
up prairies, building bridges, and in a variety 
of ways laying the foundations of national 
wealth and power. What a pursuit after the 

[20] 



Modern Values 

trifles and trinkets of wealth! Every labor- 
saving device ought to give us more time for 
meditation, but it only increases our hurry. 
The fact that we are able to travel more rapid- 
ly ought to add to the leisure of life, but it 
adds to its pace. We all see and deplore the 
confusion — men rushing through life and nev- 
er taking time to live ; men hungering for that 
which is noble, but never finding time to be 
fed. No appeal, no argument avails ; and, with 
all the boasts that we make of the victories of 
our age in science, we must remember that 
nothing is probably more dangerous for the 
human race than "science without poetry and 
culture without insight." 

When we look into the mirror of fiction we 
find that our literature gives us little more than 
passing thoughts of things eternal. In hun- 
dreds of our modern productions there is an 
entire absence of any reference to religious 
faith, aims, or motives. To read them would 
be to feel that Christianity is dead, buried, and 
forgotten. The characters in many of these 

[21] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

books pass through great tribulations, sinning 
and suffering, driven through anguish to de- 
spair ; yet they never pray, never think of God, 
and never imagine, apparently, that religion 
has any message for them. In the tangled 
maze of our modern life there are many who 
are enveloped in an atmosphere of quiet athe- 
ism. 

Looking over this teeming world to-day, so 
full of tumult and so torn by terrible strife, 
one can see how racial rancor, greed, envy, and 
ambition have reaped their inevitable fruitage. 
With Nietzsche and Bernhardi boldly advo- 
cating a rationale of war, men have been led 
naturally to worship at the shrine of Force. 
Those who a few years ago prophesied the 
end of war have been living under a black 
cloud. There were those who said that the 
aeroplane looking down upon arsenals, for- 
tresses, and cannons, and photographing forti- 
fications had made spies unnecessary and forts 
ridiculous. Other enthusiasts said that the 
Marconigram would end war, in that it had 

[22] 



Modern Values 

become impossible for any ship to escape cap- 
ture. Then came the men whose hope was 
based upon commerce and the dependence of 
one nation upon another. But all of these 
dreams have come to nothing. It has been 
twenty-seven hundred years since the Hebrew 
prophets predicted the end of war, yet the 
nations are armed to the teeth. Nearly as long 
ago Plato dreamed of an ideal state, yet how 
far away it all seems! When all of the facts 
pass in review before our eyes, we are led to 
think in the words of Kipling: 

We have done with Hope and Honor, we are 
lost to Love and Truth, 
We are dropping down the ladder rung by 
rung; 
And the measure of our torment is the meas- 
ure of our youth — 
God help us, for we knew the worst too 
young ! 

Many have pondered over these dark enig- 
mas of our humanity until their eyes have been 
quenched in a gulf of deep despair. They can 
see no hopeful end to a chaotic world. And yet 

[23] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

in these raging tempests there may be a storm 
that will clear the air of pestilential vapors and 
hasten the coming of a better day. We need 
not accept war as the permanent and inevitable 
condition of society. For the time "Corsica 
may seem to have conquered Galilee," but that 
is only seeming. 

In the meanwhile our Christian pulpit has 
many problems to confront. The voices of the 
age call men away from the inner life, and we 
are almost imperceptibly led to neglect the cul- 
ture of the soul. Our life is obsessed by things 
external, by the glitter and the glamour of the 
surface of things. There are preachers who 
feel that they are a spiritual Atlas bearing 
the world upon their shoulders. They wear a 
troubled and despondent look, and much of 
their preaching seems to say: 

"The time is out of joint: O cursed spite, 
That ever I was born to set it right !" 

With the din of the "practical" ringing in 
men's ears, we are likely to overlook that 
which is infinitely important, the task of sys- 

[24] 



Modern Values 

tematic thinking about spiritual values. , Ours 
has been called a practical age, and for that 
reason we are looking for results. We are 
measuring men to-day by the results which 
they can produce. The practical is not without 
its very distinct value, but the short-sighted- 
ness of an overdone principle of the practical 
in its relation to human values is apparent. 
Practical requirements may be carried to the 
extent of stifling and deadening the highest 
and best things in our human nature. The 
real value of the practical lies in that which 
administers to the highest and finest expres- 
sions of personal life. For this reason we do 
well to look carefully into that type of educa- 
tion that measures its efficiency in terms of 
"the earning capacity of the boy during the 
first ten years after graduation" and produces 
a type of ministry guaranteed to "deliver the 
goods." 

No one wishes to undervalue the efficacy of 
the practical in dealing with the problems of 
our time, but who cannot see the impoverish- 

[25] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

merit of the highest and best in human nature 
as a consequence of the rule of the practical in 
the great ideals of life? Where is this more 
apparent than in our modern estimates of suc- 
cess? An Italian historian has written an ar- 
ticle on "The Religion of Success/' which, he 
contends, is fast becoming the creed of our age 
and an absorbing and sacred conviction. Suc- 
cess is a sufficient answer to every objection. 
We are willing to forgive anything but failure 
and equally ready to pardon anything that 
wins. No wonder we dance about an image of 
the golden calf ! When society loses its great 
faiths and idealisms by which it has been led 
in pursuit of the highest, we need not wonder 
that life degenerates into a feverish scramble, 
bereft of dignity, nobility, and repose. 

The crafty suggestions of ambition were 
never more alluring than they are to-day, guar- 
anteeing the largest returns through compro- 
mise and expediency. To the statesman it 
whispers: "We must be practical; we must 
take men as they are. This is not an ideal 

[26] 



Modern Values 

world; the pure gold of truth must be alloyed 
with a bit of falsehood to make it workable/' 
To many an ambitious man Satan whispers: 
"This material world is my kingdom, and 
heaven is God's kingdom. If you will recog- 
nize me in a practical way on earth, I will 
recognize you through your ideals as to heav- 
en. We must get together, for remember 
there must be compromise if there is to be 
success." The entire philosophy of compro- 
mise and expediency can be summed up thus: 
Add God and the devil together and divide by 
two, and you have a practical, working philos- 
ophy which will mean success and honor. The 
emissaries of compromise exclaim with equal 
emphasis : "Good Lord, good devil !" The old 
philosophy taught that there were two gods, a 
god of virtue and a god of evil; but there is 
no room for two gods in the universe of the 
soul. 

Every man ought to rejoice in any form of 
useful enterprise, but no success can be said 
to be real when it is secured by the injury or 

[27] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

destruction of the soul; and because so much 
of what is called success is achieved at such 
frightful sacrifice of what is finest in men, it 
is not success at all, but rather tragic, dismal 
failure. Every day we see men bartering their 
very souls, cheating themselves out of their 
birthright, and the paltry success which they 
gain is out of all proportion to the price. 
"Born a man and died a grocer" would be a 
truthful summing up of many a life story. 
The life work of every man ought to be a 
divine school of discipline in which his capaci- 
ties are developed and his powers increased. 
But if this school proves to be a prison, and, 
instead of the individual's becoming the master 
of all its problems, it gains the mastery over 
him, there inevitably follows that destruction 
of spiritual liberty whereby men are enabled 
to prove victorious in the trials which beset 
our mortal lot. 

Before men become engrossed in their pur- 
suits to the extent of devoting their exclusive 
affections to them, they should take to heart 

[28] 



Modern Values 

those famous words of Darwin, who, though 
accounted a glittering success by many, has 
left us in these words the picture of an inward 
tragedy of soul: 

Up to the age of thirty or beyond it, poetry of 
many kinds, such as the works of Milton, Gray, 
Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley, 
gave me great pleasure, and even as a school- 
boy I took intense delight in Shakespeare. . . . 
Pictures gave me considerable, and music very 
great delight. But now for many years I can- 
not endure to read a line of poetry. I have 
tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it 
so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have 
also almost lost my taste for pictures or music. 
... I retain some taste for fine scenery, but it 
does not cause me the exquisite delight which 
it formerly did. . . . My mind seems to have 
become a kind of machine for grinding general 
laws out of large collections of facts. ... If 
I had to live my life again, I would have made 
a rule to read some poetry and listen to some 
music at least once every week, for perhaps the 
parts of my brain now atrophied would have 
been kept active through use. The loss of 
these tastes is a loss of happiness and may 
possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more 
probably to the moral character, by enfeebling 
the emotional part of our nature. 

[29] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

How different the life of James Smetham, 
who, though accounted by many a failure, has 
left us in his "Letters" the history of a suc- 
cessful soul ! The great question that came to 
Smetham was: "How shall I order and direct 
my life? What shall I aim at?" He felt that 
to give himself entirely to painting would be 
to lose the mental and moral culture which he 
needed ; so through long years he combined the 
culture of art, literature, and the religious life 
all in one. Though many looked on him as a 
painter who had failed, he was able to say: 

I am looking on myself as one who has got 
on — as one who, if he had chosen, could have 
had a competence, if not a fortune, but has got 
something a thousand times better, more real, 
more inward, less in the power of others, less 
variable, more eternal. I could scarcely wish 
to realize more on earth of an earthly kind. 
All I wish is to increase the knowledge of God 
and the sense of repose in him as King and 
Father through his Son and Mediator. 

Looking back over his life, he could say: 
"If all were to do over again, I would do just 
the same. I would not have it otherwise." 

[30] 



Modern Values 

Surely this was the largest success, and thus to 
view life in all of its victorious triumphs over 
earthly allurements is infinitely more sublime 
than any tinseled prize this world can give. 
Smetham invested life with a unique grandeur 
because he glorified life in the pursuit of a 
high and noble purpose. Never denying his 
dream, never betraying his hope, never waver- 
ing from his ideal, he pursued to the end the 
heaven-born aim with a step that never halted 
and a nerve that never faltered. From youth 
to age, in poverty and in plenty, in sickness 
and in health, he was ever led on by that flame 
enkindled in the morning of youth. 

In an age when men are measuring success 
in terms within the power of numbers to com- 
pute, unceasingly and with every art at our 
command, we must hold up before the eyes of 
the youth of this generation the reality, the 
divinity, the surpassing glory of the moral 
ideal. We must hold before them that light 
that never was on land or sea and impress 
upon them the truth that the only success 

[31] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

worth while amidst the besieging vanities of 
life is the success that lies in the path of fidel- 
ity to the moral ideal. 

"In spite of the stare of the wise 
And the world's derision, 
Dare travel the star-blazed road, 
Dare follow the vision." 

With the ideal of materialism and force 
coloring the life of the day, it seems that there 
never was a time when there were so few who 
know how to be quiet and listen to the great 
voices that speak to us. Our education is 
directed not so much toward the development 
of that which is noblest in life, but rather to 
enable youth to get things quickly. Even 
much of our science seeks to know in order to 
get. When we think of the more than seven- 
teen million children in the common schools of 
our country and of the millions of youth in the 
other institutions of our nation, we are moved 
to deep pondering as we listen to their footfall. 
These are to be the future guardians of the 
history and traditions of this republic. What 

[32] 



Modern Values 

ideals will animate them as they are intrusted 
with the affairs of humanity ? Their adminis- 
tration of that which has been bought at such 
sacrifice and which is so vital to the life of the 
future will depend upon the faith and the 
vision by which they are now being led. 

What a wail of lamentation is uttered at the 
sight of thousands of young men turning from 
the learned professions to enter the arena of 
trade and commerce! In his Yale address 
President White spoke of materialism as "an 
evil spirit that has given its cup of sorcery to 
youth and beguiled them from the paths of 
noble scholarship and the intellectual life." 
There are many who believe that never again 
shall we see the like of Longfellow or Whit- 
tier, Bancroft or Prescott, Beecher or Brooks, 
because we are forgetting the fact that money 
is for life and not life for money. No man 
can realize the benign power in wealth until 
he sees the forces stored up in money liberat- 
ed and employed for the enrichment of life. 
When men are blinded by a coarse and grovel- 

3 [33] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

ing greed, they inevitably lose sight of life at 
the point where it is most worth seeing — that 
unpurchasable, imperishable beauty that gives 
to life its real value. And just here we are 
made to feel the treacherous falseness of the 
material estimate of life. In no way is this 
more easily recognized than when a man is 
estimated by his worth in money. Dr. Van 
Dyke gives an account of a banquet where "two 
great railroads and the major part of the sugar 
and oil in the United States sat down with 
three gold mines and a line of steamships. 
'How much is that man worth?' asks the cu- 
rious inquirer. 'That man/ answers some 
walking business directory, 'is worth a million 
dollars ; and the man sitting next to him is not 
worth a penny/ " A most natural answer for 
one who judges everything by the money 
standard. "How much, then, is a man better 
than a sheep" if wealth is the measure of value 
and the end of life the acquisition of riches? 
There are men who put a price on everything 
— honor, love, virtue, heaven. And in this 

[34] 



Modern Values 

lies the tragedy of materialism ; it is the trag- 
edy of low and shallow ideals. 

Need we wonder at the pitiful penury of 
faith in our day, our dearth of vision, and our 
nervous fret and worry and fear when we con- 
sider the influence of the materialistic ideal on 
our religious impulses? How many men lack 
proportion because of a poverty of soul occa- 
sioned by neglect ? Too many men allow their 
impulse after something higher and more en- 
nobling to end with a mere wish or an occa- 
sional vagrant desire. Here is a business man 
who, feeling a need in commercial affairs, does 
not stop until he has mastered the ways and 
means whereby what he desires may be ob- 
tained. Yet in the higher and more important 
concerns of life which involve his wealth of 
soul, his peace of mind, and his influence for 
good he leaves all to chance. He sees unmis- 
takably the lack of wisdom of which he is 
guilty, still he continues in his course day in 
and day out. Yet more tragic and pathetic is 
the picture of a man of power, hardened, like 

[35] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

Silas Marner, by selfish greed, and who thinks 
of the Church as a kind of "divine police force 
to hold the masses in check" while he plun- 
ders. Such is the picture of Eldon Parr por- 
trayed in "The Inside of the Cup/' by Church- 
ill. Here is a man who lives by the law of 
the jungle six days in the week and tries to 
make up for it by worship and charity on the 
seventh. He looks on business as one thing 
and religion as another. He cannot see that 
religion and everyday life must be one or that 
both are futile. He thinks that to support his 
Church furnishes him with a license to loot. 
Nor is the character far overdrawn, for when 
we come to look about us we discover that it 
is altogether too real. Such is the inevitable 
fruitage of appraising life in dollars and cents. 
Not only religion and the Church, but the 
State and humanity have felt the frightful 
blight of materialism. Instead of thinking in 
terms of humanity, men have been thinking in 
the dialect of nation, creed, and party ; and this 
has done much toward preventing the light of 

[36] 



Modern Values 

good will from shining in its beauty upon this 
passion-clouded earth. We need not look for 
any permanent betterment until there is a 
transvaluation of patriotism from a tribal loy- 
alty to a universal allegiance — until out of the 
deepening sense of human solidarity there 
springs up a world patriotism large of vision 
and benign of spirit. And when this larger 
vision proclaims its universal sovereignty we 
shall have done with the arrogant war lord, 
deceitful diplomacies, and the merciless appeal 
to brute force. 

When we are willing to admit the truth, we 
shall find that we have been trying to accom- 
plish an impossible task. We have been trying 
to build a Christian civilization on a pagan 
foundation; we have been endeavoring to 
establish a social order upon a brutal basis. 
Such is manifestly absurd. Greece learned the 
truth at a frightful cost when she built her 
structure of art and life upon a basis of inhu- 
manity to man, which resulted in her decline 
and fall. And just so shall we fall if we at- 

[37] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

tempt to rear our civilization upon any basis 
but that which befits the worth of humanity. 
The human order that will be permanently 
established is that which takes into account 
God's immutable law of moral gravitation. 
That man shows himself a true idealist and a 
real philosopher who is not awed by pompous 
splendor and who does not worship bigness. 
The glory of a nation cannot be measured by 
extent of territory or vastness of wealth. 

What, then, is the real value of life, and in 
what does it consist? Is it to be found in 
place, or fame, or wealth? Not at all. It 
is not wealth that makes a man, nor poverty 
that unmakes him. The real worth of life is 
to be found, not in the things a man has or 
does not have, but in what he is. We need to 
revalue our values in the light of His star who 
placed the things of the soul above all else to 
be prized. We need to study nature and na- 
ture^ God, as did Robert Burns, that we may 
see beauty in "the fold of clouds, in the slant 
of trees, in the glint of flowing waters, in the 

[38] 



Modern Values 

mists trailing over the hills, that our minds 
may be wrapped in a kind of enthusiasm for 
Him who, in the language of the Hebrew bard, 
'walks on the wings of the wind/ " 

Perhaps nothing in our day has bred such 
innumerable errors and countless perplexities 
as the confusion which has arisen from the 
discussion between faith and science. Nothing 
can be more amusing than the credulity with 
which men swallow anything Wearing the name 
and label of science. Let a man put forth any 
kind of dogma and call it scientific, and it will 
be accepted by many as indisputable truth. 
Some have gone to the length of believing that 
science is all knowledge and religion all faith. 
And it is not to be wondered that contentions 
have arisen when such a book as "Varieties of 
Religious Experience," by William James, is 
allowed to pass for a scientific study of reli- 
gious experience. One would think that the 
author was writing "a thesis on the pathology 
of religion," dealing almost entirely with what 
might seem to be its excesses and eccentricities. 

[39] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

He seems to lose sight of that deep stream of 
faith and vision which has been flowing on 
down the ages and making fruitful that which 
was barren and desolate. 

It is manifestly absurd to assume the defen- 
sive attitude toward science, as though we were 
afraid of fact; for when we come to under- 
stand them we find that science and religion 
both rest upon the same fundamental basis of 
faith, and both attest, each in its own manner, 
the kinship of man with God. Still religion is 
well within her rights when she brings to task 
that type of scientist who would translate all 
forces and qualities back into material terms, 
who looks on the soul of man as nothing more 
than the effervescence of matter and places the 
fungus of the field on a parity with the genius 
that lies within man. There is something in 
the nature of man that is at eternal enmity 
with any theory that appraises in like value the 
sap of the tree and the spirit of the saint, be- 
cause unconscious matter has no relevancy 
against the spiritual order. 

[40] 



Modern Values 

Nor is man to stand abashed in the presence 
of that bewildering contrast of his apparent 
littleness and the overwhelming vastness of the 
physical universe. Lord Kelvin has given us a 
hint of the incredible riches of the star-filled 
heaven, with its thousand million suns and 
planets. In comparison with this measureless 
expanse of space our earth is but a pin point. 
As one astronomer has put it: "If God dis- 
patched one of his angels to discover this tiny 
planet amongst the glittering hosts of his stars, 
it would be like sending a child out on some 
vast prairie to find a speck of sand at the root 
of some blade of grass." What, then, is man, 
with his petty cares and fleeting life? Pascal 
says: 

Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in 
nature; but he is a thinking reed. It is not 
necessary that the whole universe should arm 
itself to crush him. A vapor, a drop of water 
suffices to kill him. But though the universe 
should crush him, man would still be more 
noble than that which kills him, because he 
knows that he dies and the advantage which 
the universe has over him. 

[41] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

The universe is unconscious of its own vast- 
ness. It is, and will always be, a mass of 
brute, unintelligent matter. It never felt the 
touch of its Creator's hand, and we may be very 
sure that in the scale of God's judgments its 
vastness has no value against a spiritual order. 
God is a Spirit, and spiritual values with him 
must be supreme. 

Science is rapidly coming to see that its 
method does not exhaust the universe and 
that, as an eminent scientist has recently said, 
"If we dogmatize in a negative direction and 
say that we can reduce everything to physics 
and chemistry, we gibbet ourselves as ludi- 
crously narrow pedants and are falling far 
short of the richness and fullness of our hu- 
man birthright." God cannot be discovered by 
analysis, neither can he be understood by ar- 
gument. He will not be found by exploration 
of the universe nor by mere investigation of 
cold facts. Said one: "I have searched the 
heavens for years and have not found God." 
His failure was not surprising, neither was 

[42] 



Modern Values 

any sane man disappointed. We do not test 
friendship by the stethoscope, nor God by tele- 
scope or microscope. We cannot know man 
by dissecting him ; we know him by some qual- 
ity that is higher and nobler than physical anal- 
ysis. We may examine his brain, his sinews, 
his bones, his arteries, and fail to find the touch 
of his genius or the force of his love. From a 
scientific standpoint, we may fail in tracing the 
movements of his inward life; but still we shall 
know him through that mysterious and inex- 
plicable communion that exists between our 
souls. 

No experiment in apologetics can suffice to 
satisfy mere scientific curiosity. As Dr. Fitch- 
ett has expressed it: "You cannot catch your 
thief and inject Christian principles into him 
with a hypodermic syringe as you inject drugs. 
You cannot inoculate a harlot at will and with 
a lancet. Christianity can only be applied un- 
der its own conditions and laws, and these con- 
ditions are personal to the subject." Spiritual 
knowledge is very different from mere intellec- 

[43] 



Christianity and the Man of To -Day 

tual apprehension — not only different, but 
deeper. We attain to the knowledge of a fact 
mentally by examination, by comparison, by 
the process of analyzing and defining it; but 
we can know a thing spiritually only by be- 
coming like it. We may know the theory and 
the philosophy of music, but we cannot know 
music until our souls respond to the appeal of 
its enchanting melody. One of the sad defects 
of our age lies in the fact that too many men do 
their thinking in the light of what they find in 
the subhuman world and the methods employed 
in its study. In a hot debate Huxley told his 
opponent to dissect a cockroach and learn the 
truth. But this is not the only road to truth, 
for the soul of man is far more valuable than 
the anatomy of a dead cockroach. We cannot 
learn below man all that we need to know for 
the interpretation of the life of man. What 
cannot be found in the subhuman world does 
not exist for many men, because they fail to 
take into account the fact that the laws of the 
soul are as authentic, as reliable, as uniform as 

[44] 



Modern Values 

anything which can be found in the study of 
nonhuman life. 

Still it is encouraging to note the reverent 
attitude with which the scientist of to-day is 
dealing with the spiritual element in life and 
how far science has journeyed since Huxley. 
This may be seen from the words of Sir Oliver 
Lodge in his address as President of the Brit- 
ish Association for the Advancement of Sci- 
ence: 

Genuine religion has its roots deep down in 
the heart of humanity and the reality of things. 
It is not surprising that by our methods we fail 
to grasp it. There is a principle of relativity 
here; and we are deaf and blind, therefore, to 
the immanent grandeur around us unless we 
have insight enough to recognize in the woven 
fabric of existence, flowing steadily from the 
loom of an infinite progress toward perfection, 
the ever-growing garment of a transcendent 
God. 

This betokens a new method of dealing with 
old problems and the coming of a new type of 
mind, a kind of scientific spirituality which 
studies the truths of faith with the care and 

[45] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

caution of science while keeping the warmth 
and glow and power of faith. As for our 
part, we must live with open minds, welcoming 
every ray of light, knowing that all truth con- 
firms a true faith and that he who seeks the 
truth is obeying a noble impulse. We want 
nothing but the truth, and our house of faith 
must be builded upon the rock of reality to in- 
sure permanency. When we have a reverent, 
God-fearing science and a type of religion no- 
ble enough to take the last-found fact of sci- 
ence and read its meaning in the light of God, 
then we shall realize something of the privilege 
that springs from freedom of the truth, and 
our futile disputations shall come to an end. 

Amid the confusions which are springing up 
all about us, it is well for us to remember the 
famous saying of Pascal, "The heart has its 
reasons, which the reason knoweth not," and 
that the mighty truths that make us men are 
the most authentic notes that echo through our 
mortal years. There is something within us 
that is deeper and broader than mathematical 

t46] 



Modern Values 

calculation, and in the higher matters of life 
the appeal must be to the largest and noblest 
reason. No man can study religion who does 
not bring a human heart with him to the great 
investigation. There is one temple into which 
we may enter and meet with the great Invisi- 
ble; and, meeting with him, we shall hear 
the music of the universe. That temple is the 
temple of love. Happy is the man who has 
an ear to hear and a heart to understand and 
who attunes his life to its majestic and swelling 
music. 

No one wishes to underrate the efficiency of 
our age in its material advancement and scien- 
tific achievement; but we cannot deny what is 
too apparent, that our ostentation has led to a 
forgetting of the truth that human well-being 
lies in the pursuit of righteousness and broth- 
erly love. We have been mistaking mere bril- 
liance for idealism, and the result has been an 
invasion of a host of haunting ills and a letting 
down of the high, heroic faith that makes us 
men. It is nothing more nor less than the old 

[47] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

rot of prosperity that has caused men to leave 
the rich treasures of Christian thought and ex- 
perience and become the dupes of strange and 
vacillating fads. 

This view is not confined to the pulpit, for 
only recently the editor of a clever comic jour- 
nal marked for a target the folly of mistaking 
"success in life for success in living." That 
eagerness that is apparent in so many men to 
prefer commercial wealth to richness of soul 
he deems as a kind of insanity. That which is 
so conspicuous for its absence in our modern 
life is the "spiritual quality," of which he says: 

What is the spiritual quality? Let us call it 
a grasp of certain great truths, the knowledge 
of which is revealed to some babes and denied 
to some learned, which comes more by conduct 
than by study, and more perhaps by breeding 
and the grace of God than either. Able men 
lacking or losing this quality cease to be able 
to inspire and fail of leadership. 

This is indicative of the dearth of great 
leadership in Church and State to-day, to say 
nothing of the absence of genius in the field of 

[48] 



Modern Values 

literature. We may readily admit that the 
statesman of the past was not as shrewd as his 
successor of to-day, but he had in a rare degree 
the spiritual quality. "We are all inspired," 
said Fenelon, "but our mode of life stifles 
it"; and the tragedy lies in the fact that we 
value our mode of life more than the inspired 
vision. 

For men to ignore religion is to ignore the 
rich inheritance which is already theirs, irre- 
spective of their will. Just as well a banker 
deny his indebtedness to the accumulation of 
capital and credit which has been gathering 
through the years. He may attribute his for- 
tune to his ability or sagacity; but, unaided 
by the possession of this capital and credit, 
his ability could not have achieved success. 
Though it is not within our power to calculate 
the influence of religion on the history of the 
race, still the moral capital of the world has 
been piled up largely through religious forces ; 
and this fact should be remembered by those 
who have become critical toward the Church. 

4 [49] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

Of course there are many defects in the 
Church to-day, as there have always been. We 
want better preaching, with more insight ; bet- 
ter teaching, more personal and more practical. 
We want more power of influence, more sym- 
pathy with people, that we may have a better 
insight into social problems. All of these we 
want and need; but all these will come in 
abundance when the greatest need has been 
realized — a deeper life of faith and prayer, the 
life of God in the souls of men. 

And this culture of the soul can come only 
through a life of prayer and praise. The fact 
is that we do not take time to listen to those 
great and silent voices that would speak to us. 
To listen is the best part of prayer, and there 
can be no virtue in an idle, listless prayer. No 
one would venture into the presence of a great 
man with careless, distracted thought seeking 
audience, and yet we walk aimlessly into the 
awful silence where whisper those voices which 
tell us what life is. We cannot afford to dele- 
gate that which is most important in life, the 

[50] 



Modern Values 

issues of life and death, altogether to the pul- 
pit ; for, as John Ruskin put it, 

Precious indeed those thirty minutes by 
which the teacher tries to get at the separate 
hearts of a thousand men, to convince them of 
all their weaknesses, to shame them for all 
their sin, to warn them of all their dangers, to 
try by this way and that to stir the hard fas- 
tenings of the doors where the Master himself 
has stood and knocked, yet none opened, and to 
call at the openings of those dark streets where 
wisdom herself hath stretched forth her hands 
and no man regarded. Thirty minutes to raise 
the dead in ! 

The part of wisdom amid the fleeting days 
of this mortal life is for a man to strip himself 
of all pretense, selfishness, sensuality, and slug- 
gishness of soul and go into silence to learn the 
great facts of life. Such are the moments that 
mean everything; for then voices speak that 
cannot be heard in the hurry and jam of the 
crowd, where heart treads on heart. Then 
may we 

". . . seek within 

A life that shall never die, 
Some haven to win 
From mortality." 

[51] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

Life involves more than material gain. It 
involves more than an intellectual comprehen- 
sion of the intricate problems of mankind. It 
involves beauty and culture and duty. It in- 
volves our relation with that which is unseen 
and the harmony of our spirit with the unseen 
Spirit. We can get along with a great many 
intellectual inconsistencies in our lives. We 
may not be able to comprehend faith and sci- 
ence in all of their depths; there may be a 
discord in our intellectual faculties ; but a lack 
of harmony between our moral and spiritual 
sentiments we cannot endure. Men may deny 
the strange sovereignty of Jesus over the soul, 
they may order their lives in ways which 
he does not approve, but they do so with a 
haunting sense of moral uneasiness. They 
may continue as though they were at peace; 
but they know that it is a sham, and they do 
not have to be told that they are acting a hard 
part with poor success. They may even deny 
the fact that Jesus Christ ever lived; but 
somehow when they think of him they are 

[52] 



Modern Values 

moved to wist fulness at thought of what life 
may be when lived in his presence, and in the 
innermost depths of their souls they experience 
a longing to know what Whittier felt when he 



wrote : 



Yet, in the maddening maze of things, 
And tossed by storm and flood, 

To one fixed trust my spirit clings ; 
I know that God is good ! 

[S3] 



Chapter II 

THE CHURCH IN ITS APPEAL TO 
MODERN LIFE 

TT7HILE every age has witnessed influences 
that have been hostile to the Church, 
perhaps never before has organized Christian- 
ity had to contend with force so subtly aggres- 
sive as to-day. Under the constant fire of 
criticism that has been directed against the 
Church, a vast literature of complaint has ac- 
cumulated. It has been alleged that the Church 
is afraid to test its faith in the strong light of 
reason, that it dare not face the intellect of the 
age. Some contend that the pulpit lacks intel- 
lectual stimulus and prophetic fire; and, like 
ecclesiastical hirelings, the ministry is direct- 
ing its attention to the rich while forgetting 
the poor and lowly. 

Baron von Hugel pictures the masses in full 
flight away from the Church and finds the rea- 
son in the fact that the spiritual life of the 

[54] 



The Church in Its Appeal to Modern Life 

Church has been paralyzed by those who have 
sought to make and keep the Church great in- 
stead of holy and useful. And while the 
Church cannot longer say, "Silver and gold 
have I none," he notes the decline of that inner 
power by which the paralytic could be made 
to arise and walk. He conceives of the path- 
finder being crushed by the machine and the 
deep spirituality degenerating into a political 
color where "sociology dethrones theology and 
agitation supplants evangelization." 

To many inside the Church and out, the 
Church is to be ignored or looked upon as an 
obstacle to progress. They have a habit of 
looking backward when there existed a real 
need for the Church ; but to-day its creeds are 
all outgrown, its methods antiquated, and its 
power on the wane. Many who are loyal to 
the Church are plunged in a gulf of dark de- 
spair. When they compare the things of to- 
day with those of yesterday, they are unable to 
see any hopeful issue to a chaotic condition. 
They look into the past and see the pulpits 

[55] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

filled with giants ; they look about them and see 
nothing but dwarfs. 

When we think of the multiplication of or- 
ganizations engaged in ethical and philanthrop- 
ic work, it is not to be wondered that the 
Church fails to loom so distinctively conspicu- 
ous in the minds of some as in other days. 
While no effort that looks to the alleviation of 
distress or the development of the social order 
ought to be condemned, it is chiefly on account 
of the host of religious and semireligious bod- 
ies that the Church does not tower so splendidly 
impressive as in former times. Going back to 
other days, we see the preacher as the intellec- 
tual and spiritual guide of his people; but to- 
day, when the schoolmaster, the journalist, the 
novelist, and many others have acquired a 
share in the teaching function, the preacher has 
been relegated to his particular sphere. A new 
world viewpoint is in the minds of men; and 
all the fundamental institutions of humanity — 
the family, the State, and the Church — have 
been cast into the crucible and are being tried 

[56] 



The Church in Its Appeal to Modern Life 

by fire. There are voices denouncing the fam- 
ily as a fountain teeming with plagues and 
curses, condemning the State as an instrument 
of injustice and oppression, all to be thrown 
as rubbish upon the "scrap heap" of worn-out 
institutions. Is it any wonder, in an age so 
radical in its condemnation, so unfair in its 
prejudices, that the Church should come in for 
its share of rebuke and criticism ? To-day the 
most vigorous and plausible criticism is direct- 
ed, not against Jesus Christ, but against an 
institution which bears his name. 

Suppose we should admit all criticisms 
against the Church. Where rests the blame? 
The Church is just what the people make it, 
possessing no sanctity save that which comes 
through its service to the soul. The Church is 
not an abstract, omnipotent thing, but rather 
a company made up of common men and wom- 
en who live, toil, suffer, and die ; "a society not 
of saints, but of seekers after goodness." No 
doubt the Church has its faults, but these are 
the faults of our humanity. It holds its treas- 

[57] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

ures in earthen vessels. No man can justify 
the washing of his hands in aloofness. It is 
his Church just as it is his country and his 
civilization; and if he loves his race, he will be 
loyal to it. The testimony of the atheist and 
the cynic is of no value in their reproach of 
the Church. To quote the words of Burke: 
"If our religious tenets should ever want a 
further elucidation, we shall not call on athe- 
ism to explain them. We shall not light up our 
temple from that unhallowed fire." Among 
many debts that we owe to Aristotle is the 
fact that, having no religion, he attempted no 
book about religion. This is what Carlyle ob- 
jected to in Voltaire, and this is a just and 
valid criticism of all unillumined thinking 
about religion and of all fault-finding by those 
whose hearts are foreign to the welfare of the 
Church. 

Still it cannot be denied that much of the 
criticism against the Church and our concep- 
tion of religious truth has arisen from dog- 
matic methods of interpreting religion and 

[58] 



The Church in Its Appeal to Modern Life 

from doctrinal skirmishes and accusations be- 
tween exponents of various viewpoints. The 
result has been confusion even in the Church 
itself, and we are brought face to face with 
the spectacle of the membership of the Church 
rallying about the standards of the "new" or 
the "old," with but a faint idea of the real is- 
sue involved. In the light of these exasper- 
ating contentions, the conviction is made 
stronger that the task of Christian thinking 
is to learn the Christian gospel of the spir- 
itual life in its supreme revelation — in Jesus 
Christ and in all experience and history as 
the context of Jesus and his gospel. In this 
we can learn much from the old Quakers, for 
they had in a rare degree the true insight. 
They never argued; they were never critics. 
They realized that the high truths of faith 
do not hang their pictures in "the cold, gray 
light of what we are pleased to call reason." 
Christianity is the monopoly of no Church 
and no creed, whatever may be the ecclesias- 
tical name. We need to put away all strife, 

[59] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

that in all the departments of the holy cath- 
olic Church we may find those who have dared 
to follow the star-led vision — those who have 
felt the touch of the Spirit of the Christ and 
in the forms natural to their day and place 
are striving to realize the ends for which he 
laid down his life. 

The pulpit is engaged in a futile task when 
it addresses the life of the present in the terms 
of a time gone by. Many recall a time when 
questions of faith and doctrine were topics of 
fireside conversation. But that time has gone, 
perhaps never to return. The average man of 
to-day is engaged in what some term "a pur- 
suit of the practical," and for this reason he 
is oddly silent where his fathers were loudly 
talkative. Some have grown . indifferent, but 
others are dumb because they do not know 
what to say. In this change that has taken 
place in our way of thinking of life we are 
losing some things that we can ill afford to 
lose, but we are ridding ourselves of certain 

[60] 



The Church in Its Appeal to Modern Life 

theological encumbrances that have no value 
in dealing with the essential things of life. 

Why should we bemoan the passing of those 
Puritanic conceptions of life, taken from those 
who were less followers of Christ than saints 
of the old economy, bound by censorious rules 
of appalling rigidity? To them life was a 
shadow and joy a sin. They turned a day 
which should have been a joyous festival of 
faith into a horror of artificial sanctimonious- 
ness. In "Little Dorrit" Dickens describes 
those dull Sundays when the laughter of life 
died away and the home was enveloped in a 
shadow that fell over it like a pall : 

The sleepy Sunday of his boyhood when, 
like a military deserter, he was marched to 
chapel, morally handcuffed to another boy ; and 
when he would willingly have bartered two 
meals of indigestible sermon for another ounce 
of mutton at his scanty dinner in the flesh. 
There was the interminable Sunday of his non- 
age when his mother, stern of face, would sit 
all day behind a Bible — bound, like her own 
construction of it, in the hardest, barest, and 
straightest boards, with a sprinkling of wrath- 

[61] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

ful red upon the edges of the leaves — as if 
it, of all books, were a fortification against 
sweetness of temper and natural affection. 
Then there was the resentful Sunday of a little 
later, when he sat with a sullen sense of injury 
in his heart and no more real knowledge of the 
beneficent history of the New Testament than 
if he had been bred among idolaters. 

Who would call back those theological con- 
ceptions that found expression in such pun- 
gent sermons as "Sinners in the Hands of an 
Angry God," by Jonathan Edwards, and 
which made the chief concern of religion an 
escape from the horrors of hell? Can we 
conceive of the life of faith and prayer and 
vision falling into a sadder perversion? No 
wonder Santa Teresa prayed for a cup of wa- 
ter in one hand and a flame of fire in the oth- 
er, that with the one she might quench the 
fires of hell and with the other burn up the 
glories of heaven, that men might learn to 
love God for his loveliness and to do right 
for the sake of right. Against such prostitu- 
tion of religion into a scramble for safety 

[62] 



The Church in Its Appeal to Modern Life 

men will never cease to protest, and rightfully 
so. While it is true that every religious con- 
ception has its place in the gradually unfold- 
ing process of religious truth, we parade our- 
selves as narrow dogmatists when we claim 
for these ideas the place of finality. The cru- 
sade that began when Bernard of Clairvaux 
preached from the hilltop at Vezelia and there 
arose from the surging sea of humanity the 
shout, "Crosses, crosses !" was not without its 
distinct contribution; but it was only a link in 
the chain. Daniel Rowlands made his pulpit 
a smoking and thundering Sinai, but not until 
he learned to preach the sovereign grace of 
God did the eighteenth-century revival in 
Wales work its wonder. 

He knows little of history who underval- 
ues the resources of the past and their con- 
tribution to the life of the present. Nor 
do we wish to be guilty of that ingratitude 
expressed in the line of Lowell: "Thoughts 
that great hearts broke for, we breathe cheap- 
ly in the common air." But we greatly limit 

[6 3 ] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

the scope of religious expression when we 
seek the credentials and assurances of the di- 
vine only in the life of the past. Just as the 
faith of the past found its spiritual verities 
in terms that it knew, so must we seek in the 
forms of the life of to-day the assurance of 
God. The virility of all religion is to be found 
in the degree of its application to the ideals 
and conditions of its times; and just as God 
spoke convincingly to a past civilization in 
terms congenial to that age, so will he speak 
to us in terms of our ruling convictions. No 
fact is more indicative of the penury of our 
faith than the alertness with which we seek 
the evidences of the supernatural expressed in 
miraculous deeds, occurrences, and experi- 
ences, pointing to these as the supreme creden- 
tials of the divine. We demand visible proofs 
(which are nonspiritual) of spiritual reality. 
The supernatural, in the demonstration of di- 
vine power in the human realm, is not to be 
discounted; but equally important is the dem- 
onstration of the presence of God and the sa- 

[6 4 ] 



The Church in Its Appeal to Modern Life 

credness of life in terms of to-day's life. The 
deepest convictions of life are taking form in 
righteousness, law, and service; and in these 
we must find the evidences of the supernat- 
ural, realizing that even in the commonplace 
the Infinite touches our finite life. Unless we 
can convincingly show God at work in the life 
of to-day, no volume of "supernatural evi- 
dences" out of the past can create religious 
reality. 

Men of to-day are asking for living bread, 
not crumbs swept up from the past; they are 
seeking a vital, energizing faith, not a tradi- 
tion. In his "Divinity School Address" Em- 
erson made a plea for the reality and fresh- 
ness of faith: 

The foregoing generations beheld God and 
nature face to face; we through their eyes. 
Why should not we also enjoy an original re- 
lation to the universe? Whv should not we 
have a religion of revelation to us, not the his- 
tory of theirs? The sun shines to-day also. 
There is more wool and flax in the fields. 

Instead of the abstract terms of the older 
5 [65] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

theology, drawn from metaphysics or logic or 
law, men are seeking a more concrete, a more 
personal expression of Christianity. We must 
not forget that God has done great things for 
our fathers and that "the good old days" were 
very real, but we must also cherish the faith 
that God still speaks and promises large things 
to us. For this we need statements written 
out of a genuine sympathy with the past and 
an intelligent understanding of its contribu- 
tion to Christian progress, but also with a 
clear understanding of the distinctive needs of 
our own day and of the special answer of 
Christ to those needs. This calls for insight 
and foresight. Our Lord's atonement is not 
simply "a finished work"; it is the divine fire 
of self-sacrifice which ever renews itself. His 
life is not a mere memory, but a perennial 
ideal at whose shrine the pilgrim hopes to 
realize all the beauty of his dreams. 

In the study of the progress of Christian 
thought we readily see that each age has for- 
mulated its own version of the truths of Chris- 

[66] 



The Church in Its Appeal to Modem Life 

tianity in terms of its own life and thought; 
and since men can speak only such language 
as they know, it could not be otherwise. Thus 
the great creeds were primarily confessions of 
faith that tried to find intellectual expression 
in the terms of the age in which they were 
written. The crudest dogmas, bolstered by 
far-fetched arguments, were simply strivings 
to give intellectual shape to the same ineffable 
truth which we feel to-day. At the heart of 
every great dogma lies a rich and a profound 
spiritual insight, but the Church in its appeal 
to modern life must be able to distinguish 
carefully the faith from the mere forms em- 
ployed and translate this faith into terms of 
our own time. Because theologies change, 
each presenting new picture conceptions of 
spiritual truth, we should be careful as to how 
they are to be made the tests of fellowship. 
It is one thing to seek to formulate truth, but 
it is an entirely different thing to strive for 
finality, because, as Flaubert says, "The great- 
est genius never concludes ; God alone may do 

[6 7 ] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

that." The Church cannot afford to fall into 
the way of the dogmatist who poses as a final 
authority for the truth and seeks to limit the 
operation of the truth to the system which 
formulates it. No scholastic doctrines fash- 
ioned after the manner of algebraic formulas 
are sufficient for the understanding of the 
Christian way of life. There is no monopoly 
of truth ; and its genuineness is irreproachable, 
although the stamp of the dogmatist may not 
be imprinted upon it. When we come to think 
about it, we find that much of our sectarian- 
ism is as much psychological as it is theolog- 
ical, standing for different types of mind. The 
great councils of the Church have been arch- 
types of the predominant influence of some 
towering intellect like Athanasius at Nicaea; 
and if a great gulf seems fixed between the 
contending ideas of devout souls like Emerson 
and Pascal, we may remember that our theo- 
logical systems have been as much the result 
of temperament as of reason. 

The fallacy of the effort toward absolute 
[68] 



The Church in Its Appeal to Modern Life 

interpretation of religious truth is clearly dis- 
cerned in the injury that has been wrought by 
making the experience possible to one type of 
mind the standard of religious life. One 
might as well contend that those who are tem- 
peramentally incapable of such an experience 
have no religion at all. The life of Christ in 
the souls of men reveals itself in varying forms 
through differing minds, and his appeal is 
broad enough to include life in all of its diver- 
sity of temperament. When we read the Epis- 
tle of James we see Jesus as the way to God 
because of the virility of his gospel. When 
we turn to the Epistles of Paul we find the 
central, creative note in his thinking to be the 
cross ; and in comparison with the overwhelm- 
ing fact of his vicarious death the remaining 
facts of the life of Christ seem incidental. 
Again, when we open the Gospel of John, 
Christ presents himself as the eternal Reason 
wearing the form of man, the creative Word 
made flesh. No one would contend that any 
of these visions is untrue, yet no single one 

[6 9 ] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

presents the whole truth as it is in Jesus. The 
reality of Christ is too deep to be measured by 
any single estimate. His life is a diamond 
which reflects a myriad of lights, and its super- 
nal rays light up different chambers in the tem- 
ple of the soul. No one teacher has fathomed 
the boundless riches of truth in Christ ; no sin- 
gle theology has ever exhausted it. 

"Our little systems have their day ; 
They have their day and cease to be. 
They are but broken lights of thee ; 
And thou, O Lord, art more than they." 

To John Newton, who, according to his 
epitaph, which he wrote himself, was "once an 
infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in 
Africa," Christ presented himself as the Sav- 
iour and Cleanser of the souls of men. Fol- 
lowing him through a wayward youth, habit- 
stained and morally broken, we witness his 
struggle to break the cords of sensuality that 
bound him. Naturally his experience, as did 
the experience of St. Augustine, colored all 
his thinking; and yet that experience, so rich 

[70] 



The Church in Its Appeal to Modern Life 

and beautiful, does not exhaust the redeeming 
reality of Christ. To Browning, as to Clem- 
ent of Alexandria, a scholar nurtured in Greek 
philosophy and literature, Christ was the solu- 
tion of the dark enigmas that haunt the intel- 
lect and the light that illumines the avenues 
to truth. To Phillips Brooks the life of Jesus 
was the sovereign beauty of the world, while 
to Wesley it was a burning white light that re- 
animated the decaying life of a cold formalism. 
To many humble souls who dwell amidst the 
commonplace things of life and whose hours 
are spent in the drudgery of toil, Jesus appears 
in "the practice of the presence of Christ." 
And so all along the dusty highway are pil- 
grims ; and in each one there is a new wonder, 
a unique greatness, and an unspeakable beauty 
— in each a truth of Christ, yet always the 
same reality taking myriad forms. One man 
is practical and builds his faith on the Sermon 
on the Mount ; another is speculative and comes 
to Christ through far-reaching ideas; while 

[71] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

yet another enters into the vast mystery by 
meditation and prayer. 

Though conversion takes many forms and 
expresses itself in a variety of ways, it is a 
fact as true as any reality of life. Whenever 
and wherever man comes into the recognition 
of his soul and turns from the carnal to the 
spiritual, he is led by the same divine Spirit. 
The man of India who renounces an inherit- 
ance and betakes himself to the forest to feel 
after God is moved by that same power that 
arrested Saul of Tarsus on his journey to 
Damascus, and his transformation is no less 
wonderful. When we read the autobiography 
of Stuart Mill, we find that his conversion 
began with an intellectual basis. His father 
had taught him to be an atheist, but his deeper 
nature cried out for a deeper truth. Life 
seemed hardly worth the living as he followed 
the unprofitable paths of negation, and the 
question that continually presented itself was: 
"What if all my objects in life were realized? 
Would this be happiness?" At last he was 

[72] 



The Church in Its Appeal to Modern Life 

saved from despair by reading the poetry of 
Wordsworth, and the voice of the poet speak- 
ing from the depths stirred the soul of Mill 
and gave him an insight into the real meaning 
of life and satisfied the hunger of a heart long 
starved on the husks of denial. There can be 
no fixed method or form of conversion. The 
life of the Spirit in the souls of men is wrought 
in many ways. The eternal Fisher of men is 
wise and skillful, using a variety of means to 
bring wayward souls to himself. Through the 
ministry of a dream John Woolman was born 
anew. In his dream he thought he was dead, 
but later he came to understand that it was the 
old Woolman who was dead and that a new 
man had been brought to life through the mer- 
cy of God. Louisa Alcott "ran over the hills 
at dawn one summer morning and paused to 
rest. Through an arch of trees she saw the 
sun rise, and with it there arose a new life in 
her which sustained her heroic soul through 
years of sad vicissitude. That sun had been 
rising for ages, but she saw it in a dross- 

[73] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

drained moment." There are many gates lead- 
ing into the temple of the heart. The divine 
Spirit is near to every soul ; and it matters not 
how God finds, if so be that he does find us, 
then the commonplace things of life are invest- 
ed with a hallowed charm. 

One of the sad defects of our age is the 
dearth of that vision by which we are able to 
discern the transformation in the life of the 
individual, seeking to limit the expression of 
the spirit to a particular form, circumscribing 
the divine influence by our own perversions. 
Some have resorted to the preparation of sta- 
tistics to show that little change in the life of 
an individual may be expected after the pass- 
ing of the fluid years of youth, seeking to fol- 
low the ways of the Spirit with pencil and note- 
book. These would place the greatest empha- 
sis on those appeals to the period of adoles- 
cence, when youth is susceptible to the call to 
a higher life. All such appeals are noble in 
their purpose, but we greatly blunder when we 
limit our efforts to one period in life and give 

[74] 



The Church in Its Appeal to Modern Life 

rise to the impression that the gates are closed 
for those who have passed a certain stage in 
life's course. The same appeal does not reach 
men at all periods of life; and even though the 
mature man may not be stirred by the emo- 
tional, we need not infer that the inner light 
has been entirely extinguished. Amidst the 
confusions and perplexities of life men are 
yearning for an insight into the tangled maze 
of things, and they are praying for strength 
and courage to wage the battles of life. God 
works in a mysterious way, and men are being 
moved deeply and quietly; and even though 
they make no public outcry of a new-found 
light, they are not to be excluded from that 
shining company of those who seek to do God's 
will. Many men do not call themselves con- 
verted because the name has become somewhat 
narrowed, but they know that life holds a new 
meaning for them and that they are possessed 
of a power above the sordid things of earth. 

It becomes farcical to contend, even as many 
do to-day, that it matters little what we believe 

[75] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

concerning the deep things of life and experi- 
ence; still it is not difficult to discern that the 
old-time stress on creeds and dogmas has been 
shifted, and the primary question now is not, 
What do you believe? but, What are you doing 
to make a better world? Men are coming to 
the realization that it is not this dogma or that 
creed that manifests the real nature of reli- 
gion; but rather it is justice, mercy, humility, 
and fellowship with Him in whose presence our 
lives are invested with a haunting and hal- 
lowed sublimity. Or, as Phillips Brooks said, 
standing beside the pillar in Trinity Church: 
"It is a blessed thing that in all times there 
have always been men to whom religion has not 
presented itself as a system of doctrine, but as 
an elemental life in which the soul of man came 
into very direct and close communion with the 
soul of God." The soul of man is greater, far 
greater, than philosophy ; it is deeper and broad- 
er than dogma and older than any humanly 
conceived institution. It is not allegiance to 
this creed or that dogma that makes a man 

[76] 



The Church in Its Appeal to Modern Life 

godlike in mind and spirit, for one may believe 
all of these and yet be hard of heart and vile 
of life. Yet we greatly limit the truth when 
we say that religion consists in doing spiritual 
or sacred acts. To all of these must be added 
a sacred and a spiritual motive — a spirit in 
which we are to do everything, even the giving 
of a cup of cold water, remembering that 

"Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws 
Makes that and th' action fine." 

The great truths that make us men must not 
be mere matters of tradition ; rather they must 
be convictions of faith which each succeeding 
generation must see and appropriate afresh in 
its own way. Our creeds may be elaborate in 
their formal presentations; but if they lack 
breadth and simplicity and strength, they can- 
not fathom the inner recesses of the nature of 
man. When we come into the presence of 
prophet and saint, strong men who fought so 
nobly the shallow infidelity and sensuous cere- 
monialism of their time, our dogmatism and 
ritualism take to flight, and inwardly we yearn 

l77l 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

for "that pro founder life of faith and prayer 
and vision which issues in deeds of daring ex- 
cellence." In its appeal to the life of the pres- 
ent the Church must ever remember that reli- 
gious truth cannot be imparted by taking man 
apart and appealing to a single fragment or 
faculty of his nature. If religion is to reach 
and exalt the whole man, it must issue from an 
entire life and must impress the whole nature 
of the pupil. It cannot be taught as a mere 
philosophy, for, as Eckerman, in his "Conver- 
sations with Goethe," says: "The Christian 
religion has naught to do with philosophy. It 
is a mighty potentiality within itself by which 
suffering and sunken humanity is raised God- 
ward." Because of its intimate personal qual- 
ity it must be taught through the power of 
personality. Its great invitations are invita- 
tions to a personal fellowship and not dogmas 
to be accepted by the mind. Religion is more 
than knowledge ; it is spirit and life. 

No appeal could be more tragically pathetic 
than that, so often invested with ecclesiastical 

[78] 



The Church in Its Appeal to Modern Life 

authority and approbation, which seeks to 
reach the masses by the adoption of the sensa- 
tional and showy, the attempt to lift the world 
by ecclesiastical devices to a position which in 
the divine will can be attained only by a steady 
and silent growth continued through many sea- 
sons. Pitiful beyond words are the desperate 
efforts made and methods employed to keep 
the Church forward — publicity, booster pro- 
grams, freakish evangelism, and the like — 
frantic grappling for straws in the wind in- 
stead of cleaving to that which is abiding. 
Some writers see the Church as she walks "in 
the valley of humiliation ,, because of the at- 
tempt to "make up in organization what is lack- 
ing in inspiration" and of the folly of "aping 
the tactics of the world." 

Much is to be said in favor of the modern 
evangelism ; but we can find but little comfort 
in that which is so startlingly apparent, yielding 
to the temptation of the melodramatic in order 
to gain an immediate result. The same temp- 
tation that came to Jesus as dazzling dreams 

[79] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

and ambitions passed before his eyes comes to 
his Church to-day — the temptation to win suc- 
cess through easy and sensational means. It is 
the temptation that comes alike to statesman, 
reformer, patriot, and prophet. Such a temp- 
tation came to Mahomet to become the wonder, 
the sensation, the much-talked-about magician. 
For years he labored in patient and unreserved 
toil; but he lost his patience, and, assembling 
the young soldiers, he offered the captain a 
purse of gold if he would go to a certain vil- 
lage, there assemble the people, and, unsheath- 
ing their swords, command all to exclaim: 
"There is one God, and Mahomet is his proph- 
et." That night the soldiers returned riotously 
jubilant because they had converted a whole 
village to Mahomet's faith in a single day. 
Mahomet was tempted, and Mahomet fell. 
And so Tolstoy became impatient and was 
tempted to turn faith into fanaticism. He 
adopted the showy, the sensational, and sat at 
the banquet table in his gorgeous palace 
dressed in the robes of the peasant class, with 

[80] 



The Church in Its Appeal to Modern Life 

bare feet, drinking black soup, while around 
him sat his family robed in velvet and bedecked 
witii sparkling gems. There is a haste that is 
waste, and when the Church falls to its allure- 
ments it means the de-Christianization of our 
Christianity. When we commune with the 
past and learn of those who blazed the way to 
the things that we cherish most, those star-led 
followers of the vision, we cannot find where 
they were ever guilty of "preaching to the 
times," and many of them were not "popular 
preachers' ' ; but they had in a rare degree the 
spiritual quality, and they were ever in quest 
of a truer faith. Perhaps at times they used 
means of attracting attention which seem 
strange to our modern tastes, but they did not 
prostitute their high purpose to satisfy the 
fancies of a sensation-loving public. They 
were not ecclesiastical jugglers who performed 
curious tricks to win popular applause. They 
were choice spirits who dared and suffered all 
for truth and righteousness. Still, in the sense 
that they ministered to the moral and spiritual 
6 [81] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

maladies of their age, as did Francis of Assisi 
and Savonarola, they were "preachers to the 
times." They kept faith aflame in times darker 
and more distressing than our own ; and when 
we enter into their secret of strength and vic- 
tory, they will lead us to the fountain of light 
and power and joy. If the Church has be- 
come uncertain of her faith, no resort to the 
spectacular can restore the eternal realities. 
Where that vision fades, men turn away in 
despair; where it glows, there men turn for 
hope and life and healing when the cares of 
the world oppress them. 

When one makes a survey of the conditions 
and problems of to-day, the one fact that 
stands out with unmistakable boldness is the 
widespread paralysis or inertness in religious 
life as it is related to social problems. There 
are social movements not without a moral pur- 
pose, but many of these have no impulse of 
religious conviction behind them. Never in 
the history of the world has there been such a 
magnificent organization of ministry to human 

[82] 



The Church in Its Appeal to Modern Life 

need, but it is quite lacking in the power to 
supply an inspiration commensurate with the 
tasks which it confronts. With a philanthropy 
blighted with the curse of secularism, the re- 
energizing sense of the eternal has been crowd- 
ed out by the temporal. Even the Church has 
been placed in the attitude of exalting sociology 
to a religion and lacking the power to stir the 
hearts of men, of adopting the expedient of 
reaching man through his pocket. An example 
is to be found in the thesis put forth by the 
pastor of a famous Church: "Sin is misery; 
misery is poverty. The antidote of poverty is 
income. ,, If we accept such an argument, we 
admit what is manifestly absurd, that the world 
can be saved from sin and suffering by higher 
wages or lower prices. Every man wishes to 
see social conditions made better ; but our phi- 
lanthropy is farcical and fragile without faith, 
and our noblest endeavor becomes base when 
unaccompanied by the inspiration and conse- 
cration of the eternal. There are industrial 
and economic developments which need the 

[8 3 ] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

direction of higher meanings, which only reli- 
gion can supply. Why should the Church mis- 
employ her mission when she stands as the 
chief exponent of the only solution for the 
problems of life, the religion of Jesus Christ 
and the interpretation of work and service as 
the glory of God? 

To-day as never before the cry in the 
Church is for social service. Men are thinking 
in terms of the masses. It would fill one with 
amazement to know how many men estimate 
a movement, not so much by its merits, but by 
the size of the crowd following it. Theologi- 
ans are busy trying to divine the attitude of 
what is vaguely termed the "social mind." 
Many preachers contend that Jesus emphasized 
the idea of the kingdom of heaven on earth 
above the direct personal appeal. To quote a 
distinguished minister: 

The question with the old Puritan was, Is 
your calling and election sure? Such ques- 
tions are now held to be selfish, if not morbid, 
betraying an unworthy desire for personal 
safety. The Christian of our day, instead of 

[8 4 ] 



The Church in Its Appeal to Modem Life 

fleeing from the City of Destruction, like the 
Bunyan pilgrim, is called upon to help save 
the city. 

The plea to set the social order right and 
the demand for social justice are magnificent 
in their purpose; but if the Church is to con- 
serve and deepen this social ardor, we must 
not forget to emphasize the other side. Hu- 
manity is indeed the subject of redemption, but 
it is to be redeemed one man at a time. Men 
cannot be made Christians in masses. God 
does not call men in crowds. The Church 
must have the social vision, but her appeals 
must be to the individual. Men are not num- 
bered prisoners marching blindly in the lock 
step of fate. God's earnest solicitude extends 
to every soul. While the Church's work is to 
transform society, she must remember that so- 
ciety is composed of individuals and that the 
character of society is determined by the char- 
acter of the individuals composing it. A re- 
cent writer in the Harvard Theological Review 
propounded to several leading clergymen of 

[85] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

different denominations a number of questions 
relating to the Church and the social move- 
ment, and these excerpts, taken from the an- 
swers, represent in a fair way the attitude of 
students of the problem: 

"I am not so keen for the socialization of 
the religious appeal as some, feeling that there 
is an inclination, much to be regretted, to neg- 
lect what I believe is the fundamental element, 
the individual appeal and conduct. It is im- 
possible for a Church to get away from this, 
and my observation has led me to feel that 
those Churches or institutions which seem to 
have dropped this in the interest of the special 
social message have distinctly weakened their 
life and influence." 

"In my humble judgment, too much empha- 
sis on social service has a tendency to material- 
ize the gospel and lead the Church away from 
the gospel's power/' 

"So long as the social message of the gospel 
is kept tributary to the spiritual and eternal 
interests of men, it is well and must not be 
neglected. But if it be given first place and 
made the real end of the gospel message, it 
must necessarily give to the minds of men a 
very inadequate and distorted view of the 
whole subject. Philanthropy and social bet- 
terment are excellent as the outgrowth of 

[86] 



The Church in Its Appeal to Modern Life 

Christianity, but cannot successfully be made 
substitutes for it. There has never been any 
real and lasting social betterment in the world 
except that which was produced by Christian- 
ity in the hearts and lives of men. Men must 
be brought into right relation to God before 
they can ever be in right relation to their fel- 
low men. ,, 

No materialistic humanitarianism parading 
under the guise of religion is adequate to reach 
the heart of the individual. No social note can 
permanently dominate the Church; for the 
highest motive is personal righteousness, which 
is the core of the gospel, and upon its accepta- 
tion depends a righteous society. In the over- 
emphasis of our relation to man we are in dan- 
ger of obscuring our relation to God. And in 
the creation of an imposing superstructure of 
humanitarian love we are apt to neglect the 
permanent foundation of Chrises love, which 
is the only true foundation. Did not Peter 
begin the work of social betterment by taking 
the hand of one of the many lame men in 
Jerusalem? And yet in the beautiful deed at 
the Beautiful Gate he emphasized the lesson of 

[87] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

Christian individualism. When he opened the 
door of invitation to the Gentile world, did he 
not open it to one man, Cornelius? Did not 
Francis of Assisi become the chief factor in 
healing a whole race of lepers in Europe be- 
cause he manifested a supreme example of 
devotion in embracing one miserable leper? 
Lord Macaulay said that Wesley saved Eng- 
land from something worse than the French 
Revolution by carrying the gospel to the col- 
liers of Kings wood and the tinners of Corn- 
wall. This was not accomplished by any hyp- 
notic feat of collectivism, but by an appeal to 
those restless spirits who would have fomented 
such a revolution. Let the Church take her 
place in the vanguard of every movement for 
civic righteousness, for good government, po- 
litical integrity, and social welfare ; but let her 
ever remember her mission to the individual 
and her obligation to society through the re- 
generation of those who are its components. 

If the Church is to continue as an indispen- 
sable factor in the lives of men, she must give 

[88] 



The Church in Its Appeal to Modern Life 

something that no other institution can offer. 
There must be something in her character 
which the heart can instantly recognize as hav- 
ing come from upper worlds. There must be 
something in her appeal to deepen the channels 
of life and quicken its inner springs. It is not 
enough that men should be incessantly goaded 
to action when no attention is devoted to the 
creation of those dispositions out of which 
fruitful activity proceeds. A starved heart is 
not satisfied with a Church that has become a 
clearing house for all kinds of industrial en- 
tanglements, doctrinal obscurities, and moral 
problems. It is well enough for the Church to 
enlist legislation, employ wealth, and make use 
of organization in the accomplishment of her 
rightful purpose ; but these forces must be sub- 
ordinated to the ends of the kingdom of God. 
It is a small and uninspiring thing to keep a 
rule that some one else has set before you. We 
must be animated by the purpose for which the 
rule was instituted if we are to become active 
agents rather than passive followers of a sys- 

[89] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

tern. Jesus employed a very different method 
from the revolutionists. They had begun by 
attempting to alter material conditions, be- 
lieving that moral reform would come after- 
wards. Jesus began with an appeal for a new 
and better kind of morality, and instead of 
trying to adhere to certain rules he taught men 
to pursue certain moral ideals, and thus his 
gospel met a real hunger which lies deep in the 
human soul. More than any other teacher he 
knew what was in man and had no need that 
any one should tell him. With unerring accu- 
racy the thing he said and the manner in which 
he said it went home to the heart of his hearer, 
because he knew its ultimate goal. With a 
strange power of intuition, he could pass 
through the external and the tinsel of disguise 
and see into the very depths of the heart of a 
man. Though he could talk of the sins of 
society and the prospects of humanity, he di- 
rected his attention to the awakening of truth 
in the inward parts. 

We may convince and persuade men; but 

[90] 



The Church in Its Appeal to Modern Life 

unless the truth gets hold of the conscience and 
wins men to its intelligent service, they may 
not remain convinced or persuaded. A man 
will not sacrifice much for what he holds in- 
differently ; but when the truth takes vital hold 
upon him, he will maintain it against over- 
whelming odds. The truth that man holds 
with tenacity and defends with courage must 
be rooted in the rational, moral soil of the 
heart; for, as Pascal said, "The heart has its 
reasons which the reason knoweth not" — not 
that the heart has nothing in common with 
reason, but simply that it has reasons of its 
own. There is something in the heart of hu- 
manity that is deeper than dogma, older than 
logic, and higher than argument. Newman 
recognized its truth when, challenged by a 
skeptic for a debate, he accepted on the condi- 
tion that his opponent should make all the 
speeches, and he would only play the violin. 
He knew that no argument could avail against 
the soft tones of a violin whose strings become 
"rainbow bridges whereon the soul might 

[91] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

climb into its native air." Religion strikes a 
note in human life deeper than life itself, and 
whoever would enter into its joyous mysteries 
must bring his heart with him. Longfellow 
divined the secret in the lines: 

All thought begins in feeling ; wide 
In the great mass its base is hid, 

Narrowing up to thought, stands glorified, 
A moveless pyramid. 

Since the appeal of religion is to attain to 
its fruition in the heart of the individual, the 
Church as the exponent of religious truth 
must demonstrate that it has a heart for the 
individual. Nothing can be more destructive 
to Christian example than the contemptuous 
attitude of some opinionated religionists to- 
ward those who do not happen to share their 
particular theological conceptions. Forgetting 
that the gospel is the message of the broad- 
minded, lofty-spirited, brotherly Son of God, 
many an orthodox brother thinks that his or- 
thodoxy gives him a right to malign those who 
differ from him, and in defending the truth he 

[92] 



The Church in Its Appeal to Modern Life 

tramples the new commandment under his feet 
and breaks the law of love. Often men have 
argued for their "isms" in waspish words, 
proving orthodox in doctrine but heterodox 
of heart. How much better the method of 
George Frederic Watts, who in his words be- 
trayed his beautiful spirit: "I teach great 
truths, but I do not dogmatize. I lead men to 
the church door, and they can go in and see 
God in their own way" ! 

There are men to-day in high places who 
are men of thought rather than men of action; 
they are men who keep their principles, but 
sacrifice their work. They speak the truth to 
themselves and to a circle of congenial souls; 
but they lose faith in the great masses, and in- 
stead of speaking to the people they are content 
to address the minority who share their doubts 
and difficulties. They become cynical because 
they are discouraged by a superficial view of 
human nature. Jesus Christ was great enough 
to defy such temptations. Despite the loss of 
popular support and even abandonment by his 

[93] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

disciples, his faith in men was never beclouded, 
and he stood calm in the belief of the ultimate 
triumph of his cause. He saw the good al- 
loyed with the evil, and by nourishing the good 
he sought to cast out the evil. Recognizing the 
heart as the strategic point, he worked from 
within outward and won the hearts of men 
by love, holy ideals, and lofty aspirations. 
Though possessed with a divine penetration 
which enabled him to discover depths of iniq- 
uity which no eye but his could see, he cher- 
ished the largest hope for humanity and pre- 
dicted its return to God with a boldness of 
utterance which even yet seems rash. 

No matter how far apart men may be from 
a theological point of view; still if they love 
God and seek to serve him as sons, they may 
be friends and fellow workers. It is not nec- 
essary to have uniformity of opinion, but it is 
necessary that we have a unity of spirit and 
purpose. The Church needs the true liberalism 
that is one in the things most worth while and 
which says: "If thy heart is as my heart, give 

[94] 



The Church in Its Appeal to Modern Life 

me thy hand." John Wesley wrote to the 
Bishop of Lincoln: 

Alas ! my lord, is this any time to persecute 
a man for the sake of conscience? I beseech 
you do as you would be done to. You are a 
man of sense; you are a man of learning; nay, 
I verily believe, what is of infinitely more 
value, you are a man of piety. Then think and 
let think. 

We greatly need to-day the wisdom that these 
words suggest. Many men have honest intel- 
lectual difficulty in respect to truths which their 
hearts long to believe, and because of their per- 
plexity they are being classed in the company 
of unbelievers. Nearly every man at one time 
or another passes through a crisis and walks a 
way that is dim and shadowy. If the Church 
is to reach men in their confusions and per- 
plexities, as much will depend upon the spirit 
in which it is presented as the truth that she 
presents. There is a wise and sweet charity 
that marks the faith of men; and if men live 
by a faith other than our own, we may re- 
member, despite the diversity of words and 

[95] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

form, that the human heart is one and that 
humanity is in quest of the same great end. 

"There is no unbelief ! 
Whoever plants a seed beneath the sod 
And waits to see it push away the clod, 
He trusts in God! 

Whoever sees, 'neath winter's fields of snow, 
The silent harvest of the future grow, 
God's power must know ! 

Whoever lies down on his couch to sleep, 
Content to lock each sense in slumber deep, 
Knows God will keep ! 

Whoever says, 'To-morrow/ 'The unknown/ 
'The future,' trusts the power alone 
He dares disown! 

The heart that looks on when dear eyelids 

close, 
And dares to live when life has only woes, 
God's comfort knows! 

There is no unbelief ! 
And day by day and night, unconsciously, 
The heart lives by that faith the lips deny. 

God knoweth why !" 

[96] 



Chapter III 

WHAT MODERN LIFE DEMANDS OF 
CHRISTIANITY 

T~\ESPITE the assertion, so often made, that 
M-J modern life is not concerned about the 
deep things of religion, the fact is that men 
to-day are as profoundly interested in spiritual 
truth as ever in the days agone. Whenever 
we get below the surface scum of life and 
delve into the inner recesses of the nature of 
man, we find, as Sabatier remarked, that "man 
is incurably religious." Wherever there is 
human life there is religion, and 

"In even savage bosoms 
There are longings, yearnings, strivings, 
For the good they comprehend not.'' 

Man may pull down his barns and build great- 
er; he may diversify his crops, and the yield 
of his land may increase; but the laws of 
growth that become a factor in his enrichment 
remain unchanged. He may increase in knowl- 
7 [ 97] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

edge by casting aside old systems and assump- 
tions and by adding new wealth to his store of 
science, but the laws of thought are not altered. 
And, too, he may reconstruct his religion, he 
may disavow his creeds, but the elements of 
his spiritual nature and the laws by which that 
nature grows remain unchanged. Religion re- 
mains the most intimate and personal of all 
human concerns, and man can no more elude it 
than he can escape from his own personality. 

Many men to-day, inside the Church and 
out, are despondent because their highest reli- 
gious impulse remains unsatisfied. They are 
longing for an insight into the deeper mean- 
ings of life. They are seeking some solution 
to the dark problems that becloud their vision. 
They believe in goodness, in virtue, in upright- 
ness, in brotherly kindness, in the brightening 
of the human lot by the increase of charity and 
good will ; but they are entangled in intellectual 
bewilderments and are honestly confused as to 
what they believe about God, Jesus Christ, and 
the soul. They are not to be classed with the 

[98] 



What Modern Life Demands of Christianity 

cynic who sneers at all high things, questions 
lofty motives, and denies that anything is great 
and noble. Out of the night that covers them 
they are yearning for that faith that will enable 
them to lay hold upon reality, and they are 
looking to the Church for that expression of 
Christianity which will satisfy the deeper crav- 
ings of their nature. 

There is a great deal of mystery about reli- 
gion in the minds of men to-day, as there has 
always been. They stand confused in the pres- 
ence of a philosophy of religion which is often 
more voluminous than luminous. They are 
pondering over the meaning of such abstrac- 
tions as "nature," "redemption," "grace," "re- 
generation," and the like, which make up our 
theologies. Somewhat after the manner of 
algebraic formulae these scholastic doctrines 
composed of abstractions are offered to them 
for the understanding of the Christian way of 
life. The difficulty is not in the truth of these 
abstractions, but in their failure to find their 
way into the realities of life and to meet the 

[99] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

specific needs of a hungry soul. One of the 
serious obstructions to Christian progress lies 
in the fact that our technical (and to the aver- 
age man meaningless) statements of belief so 
imperfectly represent living issues. Much 
good work has been done and many useful 
contributions made, but they are hidden in 
monographs and beclouded with the mists of 
creedal concepts. Men are asking for state- 
ments which are at once comprehensive and 
simple, statements which present the essentials 
of Christianity freed from the encumbrances 
of technicality. Modern life is demanding a 
theology for the people whose roots will strike 
deep into the soil of life and whose message 
will be clothed in expressions so simple that the 
layman, as well as the theologian, can under- 
stand it. 

When the Church returns to simplicity in the 
expression of the truths of Christianity, she 
will return to a closer fellowship with Him 
whose truth sets us free. How strange it is 
that we seek to embellish the simplicity and 

[ ioo] 



What Modern Life Demands of Christianity 

beauty of His truth by the addition of the the- 
ories of the dogmatists! Just as well might 
we attempt to "paint the lily and perfume the 
rose." Think of how Jesus took the most 
commonplace things to impress a truth and 
how he invested the trivial with a new value. 
A hen and her chicks, a flower of the field, a 
lost coin became at his touch a parable and a 
picture of the ways of God. Though he re- 
vealed depths which no philosopher could fath- 
om and unfolded problems that were the de- 
spair of the wisest rabbi, he set forth the eter- 
nal, saving truth in a way so simple that a little 
child could understand. 

One of the evidences of the simplicity of 
Christ as a religious teacher is the fact that he 
grounded duty and responsibility in man's mor- 
al constitution and separated them entirely 
from creeds. He emphasized those duties that 
are found in man's nature and constitution and 
called men to purity of life because all bore the 
image of God. If the Church to-day is urging 
men toward right in conformity to a creed, 

[IOI] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

she is losing the essential inspiration for the 
beauty of holiness. In the Middle Ages, when 
the Crusaders returned from the holy wars, 
the whole army was laden with spoil. The 
knights became more concerned about plunder 
than with the purpose of the crusade; and, 
fastening pieces of carved furniture to their 
horses and collecting in spacious sacks all sorts 
of curious trinkets to carry home, the army 
became impotent as soldiers and gave the 
appearance of a band of traveling peddlers. 
And so when the Church forgets her mission 
and becomes laden with the rubbish of the 
scholastics, she loses her power to meet the 
problems of a restless age. If perfection is 
what Michelangelo defined it, "the purgation 
of superfluities, ,, the Church can attain it only 
as she returns to the simplicity of the truth as 
Jesus taught it. Lincoln was questioned by a 
friend as to his Church affiliation. He replied : 
"I have never joined any Church; but when 
any Church will inscribe over its altar as its 
qualification for membership the words of the 

[ 102] 



What Modern Life Demands of Christianity 

Saviour, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and 
thy neighbor as thyself/ that Church will I 
join with all my heart and all my soul." His 
words were not the glib thrust of a critic, but 
rather the expression of a deep nature who 
felt that the gem had become obscure in the 
setting. 

If men are asking for simplicity for the 
understanding of Christian truth, they are 
nonetheless seeking the spirit of unity in the 
essential purposes of Christianity. What must 
be the effect produced on the unchristian mind 
by the spectacle of approximately one hundred 
and fifty separate religious bodies in our own 
country? Many denominational organizations 
possess substantially the same creed and polity, 
but they are kept apart by petty strife and prej- 
udice. There have already been a number of 
amalgamations, and no doubt there will be 
more ; but it is a vain anticipation to expect the 
fusion of all Churches into one body. Indeed, 
such a coalition would be altogether undesira- 

[103] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

ble. There was an attempt to make the world 
of one theology, and a type of unity was pre- 
served for twelve dark centuries, but there has 
never been anything more direful in its conse- 
quences. It is an absurd paradox to say, "No 
matter what a man believes, so his life is 
right," for belief creates character. Our dif- 
ferent modes of thought and worship meet 
varied temperaments and needs and are among 
the living things that shall never die. It is a 
very simple thing to say, "Let us abolish creeds 
and get rid of doctrines/' but it is not an easy 
matter to get rid of private judgment. When 
Arnold of Rugby suggested the union of sects 
by law, he forgot that our historic fellowships 
are great communions, "united by powerful 
sentiments of affection and loyalty and by vital 
religious ideals embodied in their leaders and 
imbedded in their institutional life." There 
are fundamental characteristics which cannot 
be erased, and it would be a dreary day should 
all differences be melted into the hotchpotch of 
concession. 

[ 104 ] 



What Modern Life Demands of Christianity 

But unity is not uniformity, either of gov- 
ernment or of ritual or of polity. There is a 
comity of sects whose basis is deeper than ex- 
ternal vesture. There is no demand for uni- 
formity which is a surface thing; but there is 
a very deep and far-reaching desire for that 
unity which is vital and expresses itself in 
spirit, in fellowship, and in love — such a unity 
as was in the mind of Christ when he prayed : 
"That they may be one in us." Because reli- 
gion is life it takes many forms, and its myriad 
colors bespeak its vitality and beauty. We may 
be kept apart by debate and argument and 
opinions, but still we are partakers of a like 
hope and faith and vision; and in all there is 
a unity because we breathe the same aspira- 
tions, the same needs, and the same passion for 
God. And this is the unity that must be writ- 
ten on the heart of every child of God, to be 
displayed with daring recklessness in an age 
when many voices proclaim deplorable and dia- 
bolical divisions in the Church of Christ, that 
all men everywhere may see that we are 

[105] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

"One in the freedom of the truth, 
One in the joy of paths untrod, 
One in the soul's perennial youth, 
One in the larger thought of God." 

If we are to make Christianity effective, we 
must know what Christianity is in its essential 
character. There are many kinds and types of 
Christianity abroad in the world to-day, be- 
cause nearly everybody conceives it to be his 
or her right to define Christianity. As a result 
we are hearing about "historical Christianity," 
"theological Christianity," "social Christian- 
ity," and "personal Christianity." The world 
is not lacking in brands of Christianity, but it 
is growing more and more suspicious of many 
of them. Modern life is not satisfied with 
these presentations; it is demanding essential 
Christianity just as it is demanding essential 
government, essential education, and essential 
legislation. If there are many dark problems 
for which we have found no solutions, the 
friends of Christianity have a right to find en- 
couragement in the fact that men are seeking 

[106] 



What Modern Life Demands of Christianity 

the essential in every realm of life; and es- 
sential Christianity is not the "Christianity of 
history" nor the "Christianity of Creeds" ; rath- 
er it is the Christianity of Christ expressed in 
deeds and life. "Back to Christ" is the watch- 
word of modern religious thought, and its 
meaning is significant in that we find evidences 
of the fact that nothing but the Christianity of 
Christ is adequate to meet the needs of the 
world. Despite the rush and roar of our mod- 
ern life, in the innermost depths of their being 
men are longing to get back to Jesus as he real- 
ly was, as he lived and taught in Judea, believ- 
ing that the "Man of Galilee" is more real and 
more to be loved and followed than the Christ 
of dogma. The pulpit needs to learn that men 
do not go to Church to indulge in speculative 
processes or gather figures on economic prob- 
lems. The life of the average man is one of 
continuous toil. For six days he breathes the 
atmosphere of factory, store, or office; and 
when he enters the sanctuary on the seventh 
day he longs for a sight of Him who hath 

[107] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

power to lighten our burdens and bring peace 
to our souls. The story is told of a distin- 
guished minister that early in his ministry he 
was preaching a message that had very little 
heart in it. On entering his pulpit one day he 
found on the Bible a slip of paper on which was 
written: "Sir, we would see Jesus." The mes- 
sage troubled him very deeply ; but it searched 
his heart, and he realized that Christ was not 
fundamental in his message. A new note began 
to sound in his preaching ; and it was not long 
before he found on his pulpit again a little 
slip of paper, but with these words: "Then 
were the disciples glad when they saw the 
Lord." Men are not crying for a new religion 
or another remedy for the evils of society. 
They are asking that religion be renewed by 
the restoration of Jesus Christ to the supreme 
place in its teachings, that the old faith may 
have a larger realization and a wider applica- 
tion to these new and changed times. 

Should the Church seek to solve the prob- 
lems and remedy the evils of the day without 

[108] 



What Modern Life Demands of Christianity 

the direction of Him who is "the Way/' she 
fails to employ the riches of her divine inherit- 
ance; and if the Church is not useful, she is 
as salt which has lost its savor. There may be 
many manifestations of human sin; but unless 
the Church offers in Jesus Christ the only rem- 
edy and awakens to the fundamental convic- 
tion that Jesus only is the cure for the ills of 
humanity, she does not follow in the footsteps 
of her Founder. In the upper part of the pic- 
ture of "The Transfiguration," by Raphael, is 
the radiant face of Jesus on the mountain top 
and the wondering disciples and Moses and 
Elijah. Down below is the picture of the dis- 
tracted father, with his demoniac son writhing 
in anguish, and the helpless disciples who have 
been left in the valley. The scoffing crowd is 
adding to the discomfort of the abashed disci- 
ples with jeers and taunts in the presence of 
their failure to administer to the needs of the 
demoniac. It needs the vision of the mountain 
top brought down into the valley of human 
misery. For the disciples could do nothing, 

[109] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

and we can do nothing in the midst of human 
woe, apart from Jesus. 

Nor do we need any theory of Christ, but 
rather to dispense with all theories and get 
back to the living Christ, who cannot be en- 
compassed by theories and who towers above 
all dogma. When Christ is not the central 
theme and fact in the Church and its message 
to the world, we need not wonder if we do not 
find that embodiment of Christly ideals in its 
membership which is the supreme apologetic 
of the Church of Christ. The greatest present 
task of Christian scholarship and of the Church 
is to find the Christ in Christianity. We need 
not think that this is a task too vague or indefi- 
nite for expression; for whenever and wher- 
ever men have been touched by the Spirit of 
Jesus and lived for purposes that were fore- 
most in his work, then and there it is to be 
found. If one asks what it is, it is nothing 
more nor less than the spirit of Jesus enshrined 
and incarnated in the life of the individual; 
and this is the spirit that has been the life and 

[no] 



What Modern Life Demands of Christianity 

strength of the Church in every age in his- 
tory. 

The objection that most men allege against 
the ideal of life that Jesus gave to men, wheth- 
er they admit it or not, is that it is too nebulous 
and intangible. With the din of the practical 
ringing in their ears, they decline to evaporate 
their lives in anything that seems so indefinite 
and invisible. To them the only rational and 
effective activities are such as may be expressed 
in building bridges, surveying land, preparing 
briefs, and developing mechanical skill. And 
because of these practical tendencies, the only 
effective way of presenting the truth of Chris- 
tianity is to employ the method of Jesus, who 
embodied the truth by the influence of his life 
and by his ministry of love and helpfulness. 
The man of to-day is not seeking a theoretical 
Christianity veiled in theological abstractions ; 
rather he is seeking a personal expression of 
Christian ideals in the lives of those who pro- 
fess to be followers of the Christ. Long ago 
George Eliot saw that ideas, however real, are 

[in] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

but poor, thin ghosts until they have found 
expression in a living personality. When we 
come to think about it, the best part of life 
cannot be uttered, and we soon become con- 
scious of the limitations of language. Masters 
of language find that words are inadequate to 
express the music of the higher universe, the 
sublime emotions of the soul, and the brightest 
visions of truth. When we seek for that which 
touches men most deeply to moral action and 
excellence, we find it in a personality and not 
in rules set to words. Behind all his ethical 
maxims Plato had the ideal of Socrates. Aris- 
totle could not reveal the golden mean without 
a mythical Wise Man ; and when Dante would 
give expression to that light and loveliness 
which lies at the heart of life, he embodied it 
in Beatrice. Persons, not abstractions, civilize 
and exalt humanity. It was not the theses 
nailed on the church door at Wittenberg that 
redeemed Germany; it was Luther's flaming 
heart. It was not the theory of Puritanism 
that contributed so much toward the trans for- 

[112] 



What Modem Life Demands of Christianity 

mation of England; it was the incarnation of 
Puritanism in Cromwell and Hampden. It 
was not the written Declaration of Independ- 
ence that wrought out our liberty; it was the 
Declaration of Independence expressed in 
Washington and Adams and Jefferson. And 
when we think of the triumphs of Christianity 
and the measure of its power, we do not think 
of its creeds, but of the prophets and saints and 
heroes who embodied its ideals in lives of gen- 
tleness and justice, wisdom and courage, sym- 
pathy and tenderness, and were followers of 
Him in whom the Eternal took loving and 
abiding shape. 

Christianity is a great power, but it requires 
a personality to exhibit that power. The 
strength of its power and the glory of its ideals 
are not manifested in theories, in arguments, 
or in controversies, but in the lives of those in 
whom its ideals are embodied. It is not by 
logic or dogma — "truths packed for transpor- 
tation," as Phillips Brooks used to call them — 
that the mighty truths of its faith are kept 

8 ["3] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

alive in the world, but by the embodiment of 
those truths in human form. Argument and 
controversy are, for the most part, beyond the 
pale of religion and serve often to demonstrate 
that "the wrath of man worketh not the right- 
eousness of God." The faith that wins men to 
the higher life is "not calculable by algebra, not 
deducible by logic, but mysterious, effectual, 
mighty as the hidden process by which the 
tiny seed is quickened and bursts forth into 
tall stem and broad leaf and glowing tasseled 
flower." In one of his sermons at Oxford 
Newman emphasized the influence of person- 
ality as the chief means of bearing spiritual 
truth to the human soul. And, indeed, there 
is no other way in which this apparently in- 
communicable thing called religious faith can 
be taught. For how can we impart to others 
that which has meant so much to our own lives 
without what has been called "the personal 
equation in faith," "the illative sense"? God 
works for man with human hands, and he 
speaks in human tones. As George Eliot said : 

[in] 



What Modern Life Demands of Christianity 

"God could not make the violins of Antonio 
Stradivari without Antonio,'' and the great 
truths of religion cannot resolve themselves 
into character until they become a shining real- 
ity in human forms. No other teacher ever 
held before men such skyey ideals and such 
eternal truths as Jesus offered to humanity; 
but these would have been vague and meaning- 
less had not the Word been made flesh and 
dwelt among men, "full of grace and truth." 
What we are speaks louder than what we say ; 
and unless religion has become character with 
us, giving us the victory of moral beauty and 
spiritual insight, we are simply talkers, and our 
professions are nothing more than tinseled dis- 
play, while those who have forgotten self and 
have become the embodiment alike of human 
need and divine grace are the real preachers of 
faith. 

In the life of Christ there was an adequate 
revelation of the character of God, so that the 
presence and power of the love of God became 
visible in human history and accessible to per- 

[us] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

sonal experience. Through the revelation in 
Christ men began to see that God was not some 
mighty monarch enthroned in the circle of the 
heavens, nor a harsh despot who had to be ca- 
joled into being kind, but a loving Father who 
runs to meet the ragged prodigal, "a God whose 
character is boundless benevolence, worthy of 
our highest reverence and love, whose mercy 
is as abundant as the sunlight and as impartial 
as the air that belts the earth." And in this 
revelation that Jesus gave to humanity we have 
the logic of our faith and vision. Here is the 
whole duty and business of life, a business that 
is practical enough for all the demands of a 
practical age. We are "living letters," telling 
men in the most intimate and personal way the 
truth as it is in Jesus. The eternal question 
that every one ought to ask himself is: "How 
much does the world learn about Christ from 
my life?" The test of what it is to be a Chris- 
tian is not what we profess about Jesus, but 
how far we make him a real Presence to men 
in the words and acts and spirit of our lives. 

[116] 



What Modern Life Demands of Christianity 

If we would be teachers of others, even as 
Jesus has taught us, it must be through a life 
which enshrines his spirit in all of the relation- 
ships of life. No man knows what he does in 
this world, but he does most who lives most 
nobly. Inasmuch as our lives are expressed in 
acts of service to our fellows, we learn of Him 
who said that to do His will is to know the 
truth and to find rest of soul. 

The religion of a man consists not so much 
in his professions, however ho.nest may be his 
intent, but in what he lives out and acts upon 
from day to day. Faith that is written in a 
book or stated in a creed may have its worth 
and dignity and may make its contribution to 
that which is ennobling, but it cannot save a 
man. It has no more value than a beautiful 
dream until it has actually resolved itself into 
character and the ideal forces that make char- 
acter. If that faith is to become a vital power, 
it must authenticate itself in the moral trial 
and struggle with the facts and experiences of 
life. It must be appraised through the moral 

[117] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

process of living and become a fact in the tri- 
umph of the loving heart and the ministering 
spirit. Religion is more than a personal pos- 
session of security and peace and joy; it is a 
service, a sacrifice, a gift to others. Only they 
are secure who build their house of faith on 
the rock of reality, and against such the gates 
of hell can never prevail. Life should ever be 
a perpetual disclosure of a beautiful soul, re- 
membering 

" Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus." 

We often talk of the social ills of humanity 
as if some patent remedy were only awaiting 
a satisfactory diagnosis., forgetting that the 
only remedy lies with men who have the social 
imagination which expresses itself in deeds of 
sympathy with their fellows — such sympathy 
as was incarnated in the life of Robert Burns, 
whom the death of a little bird set musing on 
the meaning of a world wherein life is woven 
of beauty, sorrow, and death. Burns had in 
a rare degree the power to put himself in the 

[118] 



What Modem Life Demands of Christianity 

place of another, to see the world from his 
angle, to feel what he felt. When this power 
is felt in all its transforming force, every cruel- 
ty, every injustice, every despotism will fall, 
and a new spirit will find its way into the dark 
places of the world, and light and music will 
reign where now is enthroned misery and woe. 
Our lives are worth to our city and nation all 
the good they do— no more, no less. By as 
much as we build up by faith and the practice 
of righteousness, by just so much do we be- 
come living stones in a spiritual temple. That 
man has missed the real aim and end of life 
who has not made all good things better and all 
sacred things more sacred. The best way to 
bring about a needed reform is to rebuke a 
crass and flaunting evil by incarnating virtue 
in a life of love and service to mankind. How 
terrible were the conditions that prevailed 
when Francis of Assisi lived! It was a time 
when feudalism in its most iniquitous form 
reigned ; when serfs were subject to some lord 
and the lord to an overlord, who in turn did 

[119] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

homage to a king. Incessant warfare among 
petty lords and plunder and pillage were the 
order of the day. Isolated monasteries filled 
with droning monks and wrangling theologians 
exerted a baneful influence upon society. By 
the establishment of his Third Order, in which 
were gathered hundreds and thousands of 
serfs, he sounded the doom of feudalism and 
overthrew a political theory on which the 
whole fabric of European statecraft was build- 
ed. He became the chief factor in helping to 
stamp out a frightful plague. In the most hor- 
ribly repulsive leper, ragged and rotting, Fran- 
cis saw Christ and kissed him. No doubt to 
many in this age of sanitation such forgetting 
of self would seem the very expression of fol- 
ly, yet what divine beauty shone through it all ! 
Needless to say, his kiss did not heal that par- 
ticular leper, but it displayed that supreme 
example of devotion which was needed to 
arouse men to deal with that plague. In an 
age of brutal violence and vulgar luxury, when 
there was no sympathy in society, the spirit of 

[120] 



What Modem Life Demands of Christianity 

Christ came to the surface and took lovely 
form in "the poor little man of Assisi," who 
by his artless love moved men to pity and gen- 
tleness. He was no agitator wearing the robe 
of religion. He simply taught the love of God 
and lived it, the supreme ambition of his life 
being so to live the life of his Master as to 
know him in the fellowship of his sufferings. 
If the Church has lost any of its power in our 
day and is trying to bring about reform 
through organization and agitation, it is be- 
cause she has lost the strength of a faith that 
dares to follow Christ, even as St. Francis 
followed him. 

So to live that men will see in our lives the 
image of Christ, so to decorate the house of 
man with the picture of Jesus as the artists of 
old adorned the cathedrals — surely no life is 
half so worth the living. This is what Tol- 
stoy saw in Lincoln when he said that he was 
"a Christ in miniature. ,, This it is that St. 
Gaudens saw in Phillips Brooks when he made 
the memorial of the preacher, with Christ 

[121] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

standing close beside him, one hand resting 
gently on his shoulder. Burnett said of Arch- 
bishop Leighton that he had known him for 
twenty years, and in all that time he had never 
known him to say anything or do anything 
which he would not have wished to be his last 
word or act. He lived every day as in the very 
presence of his Master. 

What far-reaching opportunities for service 
are to be found to-day both in the habitations of 
fame and in the haunts of the lowly ! There is 
a whole world of heartache about us, and we 
are too little aware of its presence. Often a 
tap on the shoulder, a kindly word, a hearty 
handclasp will mean more than the proffer of a 
purse. One of the officers of Wellington was 
commanded to do a difficult and dangerous 
duty, and for a moment he lingered as if 
afraid. Then he said to the great general: 
"Let me have a clasp of your hand before I 
go, and I can do it." A simple act of kindness 
will often brace a man against the temptation 
at hand and will help him over the perilous 

[ 122] 



What Modern Life Demands of Christianity 

places. What nobler purpose can there be in 
life than that of helping to lift men into the 
presence of their better selves and of being 

"To other souls 
A cup of strength in some great agony, 
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, 
Be the sweet presence of a good diffuse 
And in diffusion ever more intense"? 

Such a purpose is not to be measured by the 
ordinary standards of living, much less amen- 
able to secular judgments. It does not rise and 
fall with the variations of earthly fortune as 
the quicksilver in the glass responds to the 
weather. It is delightfully unconscious of the 
whisperings of self. In that beautiful poem 
entitled "Inasmuch," Markham has pictured a 
watchman named Ivan guarding the heights 
of the citadel of Moscow. It was a bitter win- 
ter night, and the driving snow was adding to 
its pangs, when a half-clad beggar came stum- 
bling by. Ivan threw his own coat, his only 
protection from the biting cold, around the 
unfortunate, and the next morning he himself 
was found frozen in death — 

[123] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

But waking in that better land that lies 
Beyond the reaches of these cooping skies, 
Behold the Lord came out to greet him home, 
Wearing the coat he gave at Moscow's dome. 

"Where, dear Lord, found you this coat of 

mine, 
A thing unfit for glory such as thine ?" 
Then the Lord answered with a look of light: 
"This coat, my son, you gave to me last night !" 

When the friends of Samuel Bowles remon- 
strated with him and urged him to lay down 
his work, the great man replied: "I have the 
lines drawn and the current flowing, and by 
throwing my weight here now I can count for 
something. If I made a long break to get 
strong, I should lose my opportunity. No man 
is living a life worth living unless he is willing, 
if need be, to die for somebody or something. " 
There are three great monuments to Chinese 
Gordon; but the other two, as noble as they 
are, do not portray the real Gordon as does the 
monument in the city of Khartoum. It is a 
life figure of Gordon seated on a dromedary; 
and in this statue the face of Gordon is not 

[124] 



What Modem Life Demands of Christianity 

turned toward that region through which he 
might have escaped, but it is turned toward the 
great desert whose voice he heard. As Dr. 
Speer has most strikingly put it: "Rising from 
those black throats there in the Soudan, Chi- 
nese Gordon heard the voice of Jesus calling. 
He will stand at last among those who in giv- 
ing water to the thirsty gave drink to Christ, 
in giving to the hungry gave bread to Christ, 
in grasping the great unselfish opportunities of 
his life served Jesus Christ his Lord." All 
true living is a dying, a passing out of one's 
life into the lives of others. 

The world is longing for a sight of him 
made manifest in human lives. Truth will not 
hang her pictures in a cold gray light; but 
when Christ becomes the supreme reality in all 
the relationships of those who call upon his 
name, then will weary souls everywhere turn 
to him for rest. Why are we so slow in learn- 
ing this high art of living? It is said that Tol- 
stoy was being shown a painting of the "Last 
Supper" by the artist who had painted the 

[125] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

scene. After studying it for a while, he turned 
to the artist and, pointing to the central char- 
acter in the group, Tolstoy remarked: "You 
do not love that one." The artist was greatly 
surprised, as if his friend had missed the real 
theme of the picture, and in astonishment he 
replied : "That's the main character ; that rep- 
resents the Christ." "Yes, I know," said Tol- 
stoy ; "but had you loved him more, you would 
have painted him better." This is where so 
many of us fail in portraying Christ to a world 
that has never needed him more than to-day. 
Let us make the simple and lofty prayer of 
Ruskin our own: 

Most sincerely 

Let me follow where Thou leadest, 

Let me, bleeding where Thou bleedest, 

Die, if dying I may give 

Life to one who asks to live, 

And more nearly, 

Living thus, resemble Thee. 

[126] 



Chapter IV 

THE CONQUERING VISION 

77V the inventory of the moral order, which 
it is the privilege of every man to esti- 
mate, there are two distinct views. The one 
is held by the representatives of a daring op- 
timism, often more facile than daring, who 
affirm in the face of all the dark tragedies 
about us that all is well with the world. The 
other view is that which finds its supporters 
among those who take heavy toll of the dark 
facts of life and feel that there can be no hope- 
ful end to a chaotic world. There are some 
who contend that the age has lost its faith, a 
saying which is uttered by some who fear it is 
true and echoed by others who wish it to be 
true. But, happily, during these times, when 
many are fearful that the Christian faith is 
fading, there are still those who take fresh 
courage and can say, as did Browning: "I still, 
for my part, see reasons and reasons." At a 

[127] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

time when many doubted, Browning cham- 
pioned the Christian faith because it dared 
face the most melancholy facts of existence, 
and that without fear or flattery. There is a 
view which is far more satisfying and more 
reasonable than any extreme; and that is that 
nobler vision which, forgetting no dark fact, 
sees through the shadow into the destiny of 
things and dares to feel that in the divine prov- 
idence every tangle will ultimately be untan- 
gled. 

Ours is an age of transition, and for that 
reason it is an age of questioning and doubt. 
But to one whose eye is not holden, the mani- 
fold plans that are under way for the welfare 
of humanity attest that our age has not lost 
its faith, but rather is eager for new institu- 
tions, and its temper of mind is constructive. 
The great forces that are molding the world 
to-day are not the noisy and turbulent forces, 
but the inconspicuous and unobserved forces. 
Very little thought about history shows us the 
fallacy of our ordinary thinking and proves 

[128] 



The Conquering Vision 

that the silent activities are the forces that 
dominate and give shape to human history. If 
we fail to take into account the silent influences 
that are transforming the world, it is because 
we have become leaden in our spirits. No man 
is degraded in his powers of perception who is 
not first degraded in his taste. All events are 
seen in various measures by various men. "Ye 
have seen what ye have seen," is King Arthur's 
language to the knights. Our perceptions take 
the color of our character. When we contem- 
plate the movement of the spiritual forces in 
the world, we must listen with sympathetic 
ears. Or, as Reville puts it: "We must have 
the religious ear in order competently to study 
phenomena of the religious order. How could 
the man who has no sense of the beautiful ever 
write the history of art?" No true pictures of 
faith are to be found in the gallery of reason. 
They are reserved for those sympathetic souls 
who see them in their truth and splendor and 
have become thinkers of the same quality. 
When Wesley began to melt the cold formalism 

9 [ I2 9 ] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

of his day with the fires of a flaming evangel, 
religion seemed dying or dead. The churches 
were empty, neglected, and falling into disre- 
pair. Men laughed at the very mention of the 
name religion, and godly men openly despaired. 
Bishop Butler, the greatest thinker of his day, 
sat oppressed in his castle, with not a hope 
surviving. Breathing upon the fiery evils of 
his time the breath of purification, Wesley 
drew the masses around him, and by carrying 
the gospel to the tinners in Cornwall and the 
colliers of Kingswood he saved England from 
something like a French Revolution. But 
Bishop Butler and many others were blind to 
the extraordinary visitation and work of God 
that was apparent almost within earshot of 
his castle. To-day in the moral and spiritual 
realm far-reaching consequences are in the 
making, but many are too blind to perceive 
them. When Pythagoras taught the doctrine 
that the heavenly bodies make music as they 
wheel in the firmament, he was asked why we 
never hear "the music of the spheres." He 

[ 130] 



The Conquering Vision 

replied that we are not still long enough to 
hear it. So in the rush and roar of our mod- 
ern life, with the din and hum and hurry of 
the world, we are not able to hear the still, 
sweet music of the higher realms. 

Added to the cloud which befalls an age 
when some of the forms of religious faith are 
changing is the gloom of man's inhumanity to 
man, with its trail of blood and fire and tears. 
So many things are unsettled that it often 
seems as if nothing were indubitable and firm. 
Tragedy attends all progress; but it does not 
spell the defeat of the good, for only in trag- 
edy does man learn the highest truths. Every 
important epoch in the life of humanity illus- 
trates in a special manner this law of life. In 
the Reformation, when old traditions were 
superseded and vain superstitions were swept 
away, no essential truth was destroyed, nor was 
any vital element of the Christian faith dis- 
credited. Faith abides and grows through 
changing forms; and if we once realize that it 
is only the form and not the essence that is 

[131] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

changing, the scene is less dark. Even the 
"Reign of Terror," whose horrors were car- 
ried to the most terrible excesses, proves that 
God can work through the earthquake and the 
fire. Our ideals have been wrong, and with all 
the woe and suffering there will come to us the 
high truth that our real progress depends on 
our genuine love of God and our fellow man. 
The proof of the divinity and absoluteness of 
our religion is its capacity of constantly renew- 
ing its fires of love and enthusiasm at the cross. 
There are deep signs that show that men are 
thinking of things long forgotten and that out 
of the weltering chaos of world tragedy there 
will come a renewal of faith in the truths that 
make us men. 

Whatever may be the difficulties, the man of 
faith has a right to believe and trust, even 
where he cannot prove. How seemingly im- 
possible were the outward circumstances with 
which Christ had to contend! How far off 
seemed the realization of his beautiful dream 
of a Christian Church, of the fine type of char- 

[ 132] 



The Conquering Vision 

acter it was to beget, of the victories that 
it was to win in the world ! What material in 
which to implant the sublimest conceptions that 
ever broke on the soul of man — a handful of 
clod-born men out of a little, obscure province 
of the Roman Empire! Jesus Christ held no 
thought of wavering in his purpose. He had 
dreamed his dream of a new and a beautiful 
civilization whose conquest should be accom- 
plished without sword or trumpet. His death 
was the dark tragedy of love crucified by hate, 
but his tomb has become a throne from which 
he rules men by a living Presence ; and to-day 
those who follow him are aware of the fellow- 
ship of One whom they know to be the Eternal 
Christ. And we are neither like Christ nor our 
true selves if, standing face to face with what 
so often seems defeat and failure, we are ready 
to capitulate to the forces of evil. 

Whatever criticisms may be lodged against 
the Church in our day, it is to the glory of the 
Church and present ideals that there is a sense 
of unattainment and that with all of her 

[ 133] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

achievements the Church of Christ has not 
measured the heights of perfection. Life 
would be dismal indeed if we had reached the 
limit of its ideals on any of its broad lines, if 
there were no greater verities than we have 
compassed or can soon compass, if duty and 
truth and life were all held within our slender 
grasp. There are great religions that separate 
themselves from one another at this point. 
Confucianism boasts that it places before men 
the practicable things, that its ideals are human 
attainments, and that it has been free from the 
stupendous blunder of setting before men those 
goals that are impracticable. Christianity, on 
the other hand, has attested the sublimity of its 
character, not by challenging us to that which 
can be easily and readily done, but by pointing 
us to those dreams and aspirations that some 
day we may hope to attain. When we climb to 
the steep hills that rise before us, it is only to 
realize that there are yet higher heights and 
that beyond the next range there is another and 
another. The tragedy of Andrea del Sarto, as 

[134] 



The Conquering Vision 

Browning tells it, was that he was "the fault- 
less painter," who had no need for rough 
sketches, but was able at once to put his dream 
into color. His ideal was too low, else he 
would not have reached it. 

"Man's reach must exceed his grasp, 
Or what's heaven for?" 

While the Church may be conscious of great 
achievements, it is her glory that she has never 
been satisfied, as was Thorwaldsen when he un- 
veiled his statue of Christ, but that the ideal 
has been kept aglow within that pointed to 
higher ends. The fact that the Church has ac- 
complished great things and won splendid vic- 
tories has given to her the power of conceiving 
of still more glorious victories. There is no 
glory that belongs to the Church in not having 
attained, but there is real glory in the con- 
sciousness of unattainment and of the better 
things that are in store for her. Still this 
sense of unattainment is necessary to preserve 
the high ideals that Jesus Christ has set for 
us, for there is no hope for the individual or 

[135] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

the institution whose aspirations have sunk to 
the level of the commonplace; and, after all, 
this same sense of unattainment may possess 
within itself just that element which the 
Church must possess to center her life on God. 
Where there is a realization of incompleteness 
and failure there is to be found that instinctive 
turning to him in whom is fullness of life. 
Where there is a facing of the limitations of 
life there is that awakening to strength which 
it is necessary to overcome. Let the critics flay 
the Church, for therein they confess the high 
ideals that she is capable of realizing. It 
proves beyond question that there is the light 
of a new conscience playing remorselessly over 
the religious order of our day. It is the light 
of God that will lead to the realization of the 
dreams we all have dreamed, the very sense of 
unattainment being its guarantee and its proph- 
ecy. 

Much of the present-day discouragement in 
the religious realm is due to the fact that we 
fail to remember that we are dealing with time- 

[136] 



The Conquering Vision 

less tasks and that the results are to be weighed 
in the scale of eternity. Looking only at im- 
mediate results, we do not foresee the far- 
reaching consequences which will fall on those 
who follow. Science assures us that growth is 
the very genius of the universe; and if our 
human advance seems slow when measured by 
the day, it is rapid when estimated in the light 
of the ages. When we glance down the dusty 
way of history, we see how far and how fast 
we have come and how we have been guided 
through the years ; and unless we be blind, we 
cannot fail to see the wonders that attend our 
progress. Things are moving, but we want 
them to fly. As Theodore Parker said: "The 
trouble is that God is not in a hurry, and I 
am." The loitering progress of humanity to- 
ward the ideal tries our faith, moving forward 
with slow and leaden feet, stumbling and grop- 
ing all the while, and we become impatient and 
too frequently mar our usefulness by trying to 
outrun the Almighty. The greatest blessings 
that we enjoy to-day, the high truths of faith, 

[ *2>7] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

liberty, fraternity, and equality, were born out 
of long years of agitation and the harsh ap- 
peal of war, with its entail of blood and tears. 
Often the seed of some greater, nobler faith is 
dropped by some prophetic hand, only to lie 
fruitless for years. Then comes an age of 
doubt, with its denials, and every flower of 
faith seems to* wither; but out of the clouds 
there comes at last a yet nobler faith, with 
larger realizations and higher aspirations, All 
through the ages the sowers of the seeds of 
light have realized meager harvests; for, 
though they labored diligently, most of the 
seed fell on stony ground, only to wither and 
die; and even to-day, after ages of time, if 
the harvest of the highest things is not what 
the sower prays to see, we may remember, as 
Aristotle said long ago, that we live in a realm 
of ends, and the nature of a thing is known by 
its final results, even as a tree is known by its 
fruits. 

Tedious, indeed, was the method which Je- 
sus employed in dealing with the problems of 

[138] 



The Conquering Vision 

the days of his flesh. The social order was 
iniquitous ; the political order was corrupt ; the 
economic system worked injustice and oppres- 
sion. He foretold their destruction and over- 
throw by writing his name on the hearts of a 
few peasants. Though the nations lay moan- 
ing in darkness, he steadfastly devoted himself 
to the transforming of twelve men. When he 
hung dying upon the cross, his life's work 
seemed a failure, for Judea was as sordid and 
Galilee as worldly-minded as when he preached 
his first sermon in the synagogue at Nazareth ; 
but here and there a human heart had caught 
his vision, and through these and their succes- 
sors there was to be established a new world 
order. When we look into the life of the 
apostle of the Gentiles, we can see, though 
buffeted by ill health and pursued by pitiless 
foes, how he carried upon his heart the care of 
a great cause. The Churches were often in- 
fested with error and feud and even questioned 
his authority; but sound and noble was his pa- 
tience, and his reproofs were like the. strokes 

[ 139] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

of a discriminating surgeon. Wise is the 
preacher who in this day takes counsel from 
him who had learned the strength and patience 
of wisdom. We do well to remember that 
nothing in the universe of God takes place by 
chance. We all labor under a God of law, and 
the same obedience and industry that produces 
the harvest of grain will no less certainly se- 
cure the fruits of the Spirit. It matters not 
how industrious and ingenious the workmen, 
all are compelled to wait patiently the comple- 
tion of a development which human ingenuity 
cannot hasten. There is no short or easy way 
of redeeming the world. It can be accom- 
plished only through the slow growth in the 
hearts of men of that love, wise and tender, 
which shone upon us in the life of Jesus and 
speaks to us through his words. Seemingly 
futile are the efforts of the parent to impress 
upon the young life the words of truth that 
found expression in the life of Jesus. Flippant 
and heedless appears youth, untouched by the 
appeals of love ; but in every heart is a cave of 

[ HO] 



The Conquering Vision 

memory which gives back an echo. Beautiful- 
ly expressive is the figure that pictures the soul 
of man as peopled "like a silent city, with a 
sleeping company of memories, associations, 
and impressions that may be wakened into ac- 
tivity at the slightest sound." No deep truth is 
ever really forgotten, no tender word ever lost. 
Somehow the angel of memory brings them 
back to haunt and to bless. It was the figure 
of an old man, gray with grief and weary with 
sorrow, seen in the soft light of memory, that 
brought the prodigal home. No good thing is 
ever lost, nothing is wasted in the economy of 
God. Every act done at the call of his will is 
a seed sown; and while we may never see its 
fruits, it will grow, sometimes sooner, some- 
times later, and the harvest will be an eternal 
harvest. 

Jesus spoke of the coming of his kingdom 
as if it must needs be unfolded through long 
and gradual processes, like the working of the 
leaven and the growth of the seed, "first the 
blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the 

[141] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

ear." The ultimate goal may be far remote; 
but as the ages go by the world grows purer in 
its life, wider in its sympathies, and higher in 
its ideals. 

"The eternal step of progress beats 
To that great anthem, calm and slow, 

Which God repeats. 

God works in all things ; all obey 

His first propulsion from the night. 

Wake thou and watch ! The world is gray 

With morning light !" 

Despite raging conflicts, there is a growing 
spirit of pity and justice among men which is 
none else than the coming spirit of Christ, 
which is the spirit of love and good will to 
men. The earth is not to be the theater of 
divine disappointment. Architecture went 
slowly from the cave to the cathedral, art from 
the daub to the masterpiece, and liberty from 
Hercules to Washington; and though the 
movement was slow, the progress was sure and 
unceasing. And to-day, however dark may be 
the clouds that hang over the world, however 
crafty may be the enemies that contend against 

[ 142] 



The Conquering Vision 

the Church, our failures will turn to success 
and our defeat to that victory which will usher 
in that eternal and everlasting kingdom that 
shall never be moved. 

Cynics and unbelievers are throwing out the 
taunting question: "Where is the fulfillment of 
the promise of the coming of Christ in the life 
and spirit of the world?" But just so long as 
the Church can point to the transformation of 
a single life, she proves that Jesus is a living 
and a present power in the lives of men. An- 
gry and murderous mobs threatened the early 
apostles at Jerusalem ; but so long as they were 
able to point to one man and say, "By faith in 
his name hath his name made this man strong, 
whom ye behold and know," they faced all 
terrors with undaunted courage. Men may 
hold varying notions as to the nature of Christ, 
but all must agree that he is the supreme teach- 
er of religious truth in the world to-day; and 
even in this far-off land and age those who 
come in contact with him find that the stain of 
their sin is taken away, and the beauty of their 

[143] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

sorrow is revealed. Though Jesus spoke as 
never man spake, it is not his words that make 
him the great Awakener of sleeping souls, but 
rather the fact that he is a living and abiding 
Presence. This is the ubiquitous fact that con- 
fronts the man who attempts to discount the 
efficacy of Christianity as a world influence. 
A peasant carpenter out of the humble envi- 
ronment of his quiet home at Nazareth, facing 
the hard, practical view of the Sadducees and 
the bigoted Pharisees, and witnessing a world 
that was a mass of corruption and festering 
sores! A time when the intellect was dark- 
ened, when luxury had ripened into rot, when 
worship was divorced from life! Yet he 
walked as a man among men, deepening his 
sympathies through contact with suffering, and 
at last suffered a death which was the inevi- 
table result of a clash of two great ideals. But 
he is not "the pale Galilean who sleeps beneath 
the Syrian stars," but the ever-present Christ 
who dwells in the hearts of men to-day as truly 
as he lived in Judea and Galilee in the days 

[ 144] 



The Conquering Vision 

agone and who can say what no man can deny : 
"I and the Father are one." Though twenty 
centuries have passed, men do not think of him 
as dead nor yet as belonging to a time long 
gone by. He is not detained in the outer porch 
of the human soul ; he enters as a dear, familiar 
Friend into its most hidden and sacred cham- 
bers. Through all the ages he has been the 
eternal contemporary of all that is high and 
noble in the life of mankind. No other torch- 
bearer or teacher of men has so influenced the 
tangled, turbulent life of the world as has the 
Prophet of Nazareth. So he is with us — a 
great compassion slowly softening an imme- 
morial hardness of heart, a deep and tender 
justice that is one with love, and a hope for 
the race that knows no defeat. As the mind 
of the race becomes a more perfect medium of 
his life and spirit, by so much does the race 
move forward and upward. 

Only in this truth can we ever hope to fath- 
om the unfathomable depths of faith. Think 
of what it means to the life of man as it lights 
10 [ 145 ] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

up the dark universe like a sunrise, as it brings 
meaning out of mystery, and puts the sub- 
stance of eternal reality beneath the great 
idealisms of humanity. This sense of the abid- 
ing presence of Christ is what gives validity to 
the daring heroisms of humanity and makes a 
man willing to suffer for the right and to die 
for the truth. Not otherwise could man show 
himself capable of enduring want, loneliness, 
despair, and death itself for an ideal. In ev- 
ery age and land there have been those who 
have heard his voice and held his hand as they 
journeyed with him along the way. And these 
have shown, as did St. Francis and Wesley and 
Brooks, an atmosphere of thought and quality 
of life like his own. More than an influence, 
more than a haunting memory, he is a living 
Presence beckoning us to that which is eternal. 
Hear the words of Santa Teresa: 

I was in prayer one day when I saw Christ 
close by me, or, to speak more correctly, felt 
him; for I saw nothing with the eyes of the 
body, nothing with the eyes of the soul. He 
seemed to me to be close beside me ; and I saw, 

[i 4 6] 



The Conquering Vision 

too, that it was he who was speaking to me. 
I was extremely afraid at first and did nothing 
but weep. However, when he spoke to me but 
one word to reassure me, I recovered myself 
and was, as usual, calm and comforted, with- 
out any fear whatever. Jesus Christ seemed 
to be by my side continually ; and as the vision 
was not imaginary, I saw no form. But I had 
a most distinct feeling that he was always on 
my right hand, a witness of all I did ; and never 
at any time, if I was but slightly recollected, 
could I be ignorant of his near presence. 

Can it be possible that Christ is in the midst 
of those warring hosts along the far-flung bat- 
tle lines? Has he a dwelling place in the "pil- 
lar of cloud by day and fire by night" which 
hangs over the warring nations? Who has not 
felt a strange charm at the story, so frequently 
told, of the "Comrade in White," who is re- 
ported to have been seen on the fields of Nan- 
cy, in the Argonne, at Soissons, and Ypres, 
walking through the trenches and bending over 
those who lay wounded? Snipers sniped at 
him, and shells fell all around, but nothing had 
power to touch this mysterious figure. One of 
the soldiers gave this account of his presence : 

[147] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

It was the next day. At noon we got word 
to take the trenches in front of us. They were 
two hundred yards away, and we weren't well 
started till we knew that the big guns had failed 
in their work of preparation. We had ad- 
vanced one hundred and fifty yards when we 
found it was no good. Our captain called to 
us to take cover, and just then I was shot 
through both legs. 

I fell into a hole of some sort. I suppose I 
fainted, for when I opened my eyes I was all 
alone. The pain was horrible; but I didn't 
dare to move lest the Germans should see me, 
for they were only fifty yards away, and I did 
not expect mercy. I was glad when the twi- 
light came. There were men in my own com- 
pany who would run any risk in the darkness 
if they thought a comrade was still alive. 

The night fell ; and soon I heard a step, not 
stealthy, as I expected, but quiet and firm, as 
if neither darkness nor death could check those 
untroubled feet. So little did I guess what was 
coming that, even when I saw the gleam of 
white in the darkness, I thought it was a peas- 
ant in a white smock or perhaps a woman de- 
ranged. Suddenly I guessed that it was the 
"Comrade in White." 

At that very moment the German rifles be- 
gan to shoot. The bullets could scarcely miss 
such a target, for he flung out his arms as 
though in entreaty and then drew them back 

[i 4 8] 



The Conquering Vision 

till he stood like one of those wayside crosses 
that we saw so often as we marched through 
France. And he spoke. The words sounded 
familiar; but all I remember was the begin- 
ning, "If thou hadst known," and the ending, 
"But now they are hid from thine eyes." And 
then he stooped and gathered me into his arms 
— me, the biggest man in the regiment — and 
carried me as if I had been a child. 

I must have fainted again; for I awoke to 
consciousness in a little cave by a stream, and 
the "Comrade in White" was washing my 
wounds and binding them up. I wanted to 
know what I could do for my friend to help 
him or to serve him. He was looking toward 
the stream, and his hands were clasped in 
prayer; and then I saw that he, too, had been 
wounded. I could see, as it were, a shot 
wound in his hand, and as he prayed a drop of 
blood fell to the ground. I cried out. I could 
not help it, for that wound of his seemed to 
be a more awful thing than any that bitter 
war had shown me. "You are wounded, too!" 
I said. Perhaps he heard me, perhaps it was 
the look on my face; but he answered gently: 
"This is an old wound, but it has troubled me 
of late." And then I noticed sorrowfully that 
the same cruel mark was on his feet. You will 
wonder that I did not know sooner. I wonder 
myself. But it was only when I saw his feet 
that I knew him. 

[149] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

No doubt to many this will seem only the 
incredible fancy of a dreamer in the throes of 
agony. Still we may remember the words of 
Hamlet to Horatio: "There are more things in 
heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your 
philosophy." Jesus is on the battle field as he 
is everywhere; not in the sins of men, but in 
what they sin against, the ideal which is be- 
trayed by the curse of war. A German reli- 
gious paper published these words: 

Jesus is amidst those who know him even 
on the battle field and teaches his disciples ever 
again and again to turn in confidence to him 
who is their Father, whose voice is heard in the 
thunder of the cannon and the dreadful scenes 
of conflict. What is more wonderful than all, 
he does not remain at our battle front or in 
our hospitals; he passes over to our enemies 
and there also seeks his own. He does not 
betray us, but he tells us that he knows others 
on the other side of this conflict whom he loves 
and who need him. Before we ourselves come 
to appreciate it he is binding us and them to- 
gether in bands of mutual respect, of mutual 
helpfulness among the wounded, and of faith 
in the coming of a better day of peace. 

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The Conquering Vision 

Thrilling beyond words is the story of how 
on Christmas Eve the English soldiers in the 
trenches began to sing "Christians, Awake!" 
and the Christians did awake, both English 
and German. The Germans came out of 
their trenches bearing a little Christmas tree 
lighted with candles, and the English ran to 
meet them. As they sat there under the Christ- 
mas stars they forgot the things that made 
them enemies, and war seemed an unnatural 
thing. What else other than the Spirit of the 
ever-present Christ could capture two hostile 
armies and make men feel that they were 
brothers? The divine love underlies all the 
horror and hatred of war and is continually 
affording new evidences of its presence and 
power. War is not the inevitable condition of 
humanity. Neither are the nations who* exalt 
war the test of Christianity. Rather Chris- 
tianity is the test of nations, and by its prin- 
ciples they stand condemned as unchristian. 

In all of the journeyings of life there goes 
with us a majestic Presence who is ever ready 

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Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

to lighten our burdens and heal our infirmities 
and bring peace to our troubled spirits. Christ 
knows no alien races, no outcast men or fallen 
women. He gathers all into the embrace of 
his heart. He does not divide men into fail- 
ures and successes. All men are the subjects 
of his redeeming love. He goes about with 
bare feet and locks wet with the dew of the 
morning upon his mission of recovery and res- 
toration. He climbs the reeking steps of the 
tenements and makes his way to the jails, 
bringing his message of cheer to all who are 
discouraged. Not all men have understood 
him equally, nor have they always been true 
to what they have understood. Ofttimes his 
gospel has had to fight its way into an alien 
and unsympathetic environment, still from va- 
ried surroundings — national, intellectual, and 
ethical — his disciples have avowed their alle- 
giance ; and to-day, in the light of the refining 
processes of the centuries, all men must con- 
fess: "O Galilean, thou hast conquered !" 
Christ's conquest of the world is being man- 

[152] 



The Conquering Vision 

ifested in all of the relations of men. While 
we may never again see the like of the demon- 
strative forms of the old evangelism, still we 
are in the midst of a social, commercial, and 
political revival which reflects the presence of 
Christ among men as vividly as he presented 
himself in times past. To-day men are feeling 
as never before that such evils as poverty, dis- 
ease, crime, and war need not be, and they are 
beginning to drive the piles for a new and bet- 
ter order of society. A new humanism is be- 
ing born in the world, the tone of our social 
life is being purified, and the ills of society 
which were overlooked in the past are rising up 
before us in all their horror. Men of big busi- 
ness are accepting the principles of Jesus as 
they are related to property and wealth and 
industry, and the Christ spirit is being en- 
throned in the marts of trade. The realm of 
barter is yielding to the impress of his ideal. 
When business men meet under the motto, 
"He profits most who serves best," it is cer- 
tainly prophetic of a better day. Ours is a 

[iS3] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

day when corporations are demonstrating that 
they are possessed of souls and that they are 
learning to think of business as a vast system 
of human service. When we hear men say 
that brotherhood is good business, that the 
making of money is not the largest part of it, 
that righteousness is the finest common sense, 
we realize that a commercial revolution is un- 
der way. Men with visions of bigger things 
than business are becoming more plentiful 
even where big financial interests might easily 
obscure them. Through years of discourage- 
ment reformers have been sowing the seed of 
a new spirit in commerce; and they have a 
right to become riotously optimistic when the 
president of a great corporation confesses: 
"To make money is a good thing, but it is a 
far better thing to be able to create opportuni- 
ties for other men to work out their own sal- 
vation in life with happiness and content- 
ment. " 

The world of politics is yielding to the im- 
press of the ideals of Jesus. Men are begin- 

[154] 



The Conquering Vision 

ning to have a different conception of the 
meaning of politics. They are thinking about 
it, as did Aristotle, as "the science of build- 
ing men, spreading manhood, and increasing 
States." They are grasping the truth of what 
Edmund Burke meant when he said: "The 
foundation of politics is like the foundation of 
society — true religion." This nobler concep- 
tion is permeating the minds of men as never 
before in the history of the nations. There is 
a striking contrast between the old standards 
and the new. Sentiments are being strength- 
ened and atmospheres created in which the 
bosses will meet political death by asphyxia- 
tion. The leader who stands for graft can al- 
ready see the handwriting on the wall and hear 
the cries of condemnation. The leader of to- 
morrow will be chosen because of high princi- 
ple and unsullied patriotism. The statesman of 
the future will be the man who can translate 
into terms of law and life the highest ideals 
of Christianity. As a great political econo- 
mist remarked: "All political economy is be- 

[155] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

ing rewritten under the influence of Jesus 
Christ." 

A world patriotism is dawning which real- 
izes that no nation can live to itself without 
regard for the happiness and usefulness of 
other nations. Commercial relations and na- 
tional interdependence have hitherto proved in- 
adequate to prevent strife; and nations are 
seeking a new basis on which to establish inter- 
national relations, and that basis will be the 
brotherhood of man. When President Wilson 
appeared before Congress in behalf of world 
peace, it was as if he had breathed into inter- 
national affairs the breath of life. It prophe- 
sied the elevation of humanity to a higher plane 
and the defeat of hate and war and strife. It 
afforded a glimpse into that new order when 
the strong nation, instead of oppressing the 
weak nation, will stretch forth its scepter to 
aid and protect the helpless. It proclaimed 
anew the truth that righteousness is related to 
the life of the State as well as to the life of the 
individual. Some declared it a beautiful ideal ; 

[156] 



The Conquering Vision 

but we may remember that the ideal is the 
principle of progress, and in it lies the promise 
of a happier future. Without the dreams of 
those who have coveted for humanity a higher 
goal, men would still be living in caverns, 
naked and miserable. Because Christ lived, 
oppression is doomed; and men are already 
planning for nations and democracies builded 
on righteousness, where there will be no su- 
premacy and no servitude, and where the 
might of all will defend the right of each. 
Some mystic leaven and secret energy is find- 
ing its way into every race and clime, and the 
best in human nature has declared itself at 
eternal war with the ideals of Nietzsche or a 
Treitschke, because it realizes that materialism 
in philosophy leads inevitably to a worship of 
force. The nobler patriotism is glowing with 
new warmth and faith and fervor and is des- 
tined to be "the political religion" of the world. 
A new democracy is dawning, in the prepara- 
tion of which men are awakening to the reali- 
zation that human life is sacred; and "to make 

[iS7] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

the earth valuable we must first make men val- 
uable." In that new democracy material forces 
will yield to the spiritual, and men will be de- 
veloped who are great of heart and efficient in 
the service of their fellows. 

Meanwhile notes of discontent are all about 
us. Many are baffled and ready to give up 
the struggle. There is a struggling section 
weighted with grief and disappointment, dwell- 
ing under a cloud. All things are not march- 
ing to the defeat of evil, as they had expected. 
Many things that have been dear to them are 
passing away. Still the literature of hope is 
very rich. In other times vested interests have 
been assailed, old traditions superseded, and 
vain superstitions swept away; but no vital 
element of Christianity has ever been discred- 
ited. Faith abides and grows through chang- 
ing forms. Amidst the perplexities and dis- 
couragements that attend a time of transition, 
we need the vision of the Christ as he is at 
work through the instrumentality of the uni- 
versal Church. In the strife with principali- 

[158] 



The Conquering Vision 

ties, powers, and the hosts of wickedness we 
need to lift up our eyes and behold the holy, 
apostolic, universal Church. Christ has prom- 
ised ultimate and triumphant victory to his 
Church. The hope of the world lies in organ- 
ized religion, because the Church is an essential 
constituent of religious truth. Civilization is 
dependent on the character of the Church: for 
when the Church languishes, society degener- 
ates; and when the Church is vigorous and 
spiritual, society is brought to a higher plane. 
Through the agency of the Church true reli- 
gion is destined to advance to higher forms and 
bloom into a new loveliness and attain to its 
ultimate glory. 

They reason in vain who contend that the 
days of Christianity are numbered, that her 
eyes are growing dim, that her natural strength 
is abated, who do not see that she holds within 
her bosom elements which are indestructible. 
Christianity is possessed of the power of tri- 
umph in her capacity of adjusting herself to 
the shifting conditions of the world. Not so 

[159] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

with many forms of religious expression. 
Gone "the Greco-Roman, Germanic, and Scan- 
dinavian mythologies; the Semitic polytheisms 
of Nineveh, Babylon, Biblos, Tyre, and Car- 
thage; the rich pantheon of ancient Egypt; 
the solar worship of the Incas — all these are 
dead and gone forever." But Christianity, 
though threatened with death, passes into the 
cloud and is transfigured, emerging with new 
energies. Christianity as the complete expres- 
sion of true religion is destined to project her 
beneficent ministry into succeeding ages, be- 
cause she possesses those fundamental and 
eternal principles which survive change and 
alteration and whose verities shine with in- 
creasing brightness wherever men dwell. 

If we ask what ideal will ultimately prevail 
over all others, we will find that victory be- 
longs to the ideal set up by Christ. The Ger- 
man poet Heine had a dream in which he saw 
the gods gathered at their banquet tables, on 
which were placed goblets of heavenly wine. 
They laughed and drank and lived at ease till 

[160] 



The Conquering Vision 

the door was flung open, and there came tot- 
tering in a pale-faced figure, like unto the Son 
of man, bearing the weight of a large cross, 
which he flung down upon the table. The 
faces of the gods turned pale, and slowly one 
by one they slunk away. The dream recog- 
nized an ideal of life higher than strength or 
wisdom or joy. And before the majesty of 
this ideal all must inevitably bow. The height 
or depth of any civilization is to be measured 
by the life and spirit of Him who was despised 
and rejected of men. He is the standard of 
our social order. Dr. Holmes was asked if 
he did not think that Christianity had proven 
a failure. "I rather think," he answered, "that 
it has never been tried. ,, There are tremen- 
dous potencies of regeneration in the unrest of 
our modern world, and behind the operation of 
irresistible forces the truth of Jesus is moving 
to fulfillment. Every nation which has re- 
jected his law of life has fallen to its ruin. The 
ashes of old empires, blown into our faces by 
the winds of time, warn us by their desolation 
ii [161] 



Christianity and the Man of To-Day 

that only that nation can stand which rests 
upon the truth as it is in Jesus. His rule of 
life is not the idle dream of a wandering ideal- 
ist. It is the only possible basis for an endur- 
ing social, political, and economic life. Other 
foundation there is none, and there never will 
be while the world stands. 

The times in which we live demand a living 
faith and a conquering vision to triumph over 
error. No matter how dark or forbidding the 
evils that encompass us, we may remember that 
we live in a world in which man is free to lay 
hold on God, and out of disappointment and 
grief he will ultimately bring triumph and con- 
solation. The leaders of the race have been 
those who have achieved greatness of life and 
sublimity of faith through the mastery of what 
seemed an unconquerable fate. Doubt is too 
easy and cynicism too shallow. Anybody can 
deny, but it takes a brave spirit to fling fear to 
the winds and capture the prize of faith. We 
are neither like Christ nor our better selves if 
our spirits faint in the hour of conflict. There 

[ 162 ] 



The Conquering Vision 

is an omnipotent God behind the shadow of 
the world. 

"Beyond the stars 
Is a love that is better than fate." 

And through the power of that love we may 
defy the throned tyrannies of the world and 
gain the one victory that is worth the winning. 

"Lord Christ, if thou art with us and these 

eyes 
Are holden, while we go sadly and say, 
'We hoped it had been he, and now to-day 
Is the third day, and hope within us dies/ 
Bear with us, O our Master. Thou art wise 
And knoweth our foolishness. We do not 

pray: 
'Declare thyself, since weary grows the way, 
And faith's new burden hard upon us lies/ 
Nay, choose thy time; but ah! whoe'er thou 

art, 
Leave us not. Where have we heard any 

voice 
Like thine ? Our hearts burn in us as we go. 
Stay with us; break our bread: so, for our 

part, 
Ere darkness falls haply we may rejoice, 
Haply when day has been far spent may 

know." 

[163] 



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